Teacher-Training  Series 

for  the  Sunday  School 


TWO 
THE  PUPIL  AND  THE  TEACHER 
LUTHER  A.  WEIGLE,  Ph.D. 


/.2-7./SL. 


*8W*  PRINCETON,  N.  J.  ^|J 


Presented    byVroX.O.  W  ,  On>\roc7\n  r0*-0 


V  (     JAN  27  1912 

Lutheran    \%,g{CAL  ^ 
Teacher-Training  Series 

FOR  THE  SUNDAY  SCHOOL 


PREPARED  UNDER  THE  DIRECTION  OF  THE  SUNDAY 
SCHOOL   LITERATURE    COMMITTEE    OF  THE 
BOARD  OF  THE  LUTHERAN  PUBLI- 
CATION SOCIETY 


BOOK  TWO 


THE  PUPIL  AND  THE  TEACHER 

By  Luther  A.  Weigle,  Ph.  D. 

Professor  of  Philosophy,  Carleton  College 


THE  LUTHERAN  PUBLICATION  SOCIETY 

PHILADELPHIA,   PA. 


Copyright,  191  i 

BY   THE 

LUTHERAN   PUBLICATION   SOCIETY 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 


It  is  with  a  sense  of  satisfaction  that  we  present  this  series  of  Sunday 
School  Teacher-Training  handbooks.  Their  preparation  has  been  in 
response  to  a  frequently  expressed  desire  on  the  part  of  many  of  our 
pastors  and  teachers.  The  committee  has  felt  the  difficulty  of  the  task 
and  the  many  conditions  to  be  met.  Much  consideration  has  been 
given  to  the  work,  and  not  a  little  revision  has  been  found  necessary. 
To  enter  a  field  already  largely  occupied  and  vindicate  our  claim  that 
such  a  series  is  needed,  is  no  small  task.  These  books  have  been 
made,  not  because  there  are  not  already  many  excellent  books  on 
teacher-training,  but  because  none  of  them  covers  all  the  ground  we 
deem  requisite.  Nothing  needs  to  be  more  carefully  guarded  than  the 
character  of  the  literature  we  give  to  our  Sunday  schools.  Especially 
is  this  true  of  the  helps  for  the  study  and  teaching  of  God's  word.  We 
lay  emphasis  upon  child-nurture  from  the  viewpoint  of  our  Church's 
teaching,  that  baptized  children  are  members  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
The  responsibility  of  the  Sunday  school  in  teaching  the  child  is  the 
responsibility  of  the  Church.  The  teacher,  therefore,  should  know 
not  only  his  Bible  and  its  message,  not  only  the  laws  of  child-thought 
and  the  best  methods  of  influencing  the  unfolding  soul,  but  he  should 
know  what  his  Church  stands  for  and  what  it  teaches.  With  this  con- 
ception of  our  responsibility  we  have  chosen  the  subjects  and  the 
writers.  The  work  speaks  for  itself.  We  believe  it  will  be  found 
adapted  to  the  better  equipment  of  our  Lutheran  teachers.  The  series 
consists  of  four  books,  as  follows:  "The  Book  and  the  Message," 
"The  Pupil  and  the  Teacher,"  "The  School  and  the  Church"  and 
"The  Lutheran  Church  and  Child-Nurture."  The  aim  of  these 
books  is  to  furnish  the  teachers  and  officers  of  our  Sunday  schools  with 
a  working  knowledge  of  the  Bible  as  a  book  and  as  the  message  of 

(iii) 


IV 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 


God  to  men  ;  of  the  personality  of  the  pupils,  and  the  principles 
and  methods  to  be  applied  in  teaching  them  ;  of  the  organization,  aim 
and  work  of  the  Sunday  school,  and  of  our  Lutheran  views  of  the 
child's  relation  to  the  Church. 

Sunday  School  Literature  Committee. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


LESSON 

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 
XI. 


XII. 
XIII. 
XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 
XXI. 


PART  I— THE  PUPIL 

PAGE 

The  Teacher's  Work  and  Training 9  ^ 

Physical  Activity 15 

Early  Childhood 22 

Middle  Childhood 30 

Later  Childhood 38 

Early  Adolescence 47 

Later  Adolescence 56 

Instinct 65 

Habit 72 

The  Will 80 

Morality  and  Religion 89 

PART  II— THE  TEACHER 

Grades 102 

Methods  of  Teaching 112 

The  Plan  of  the  Lesson 121  *" 

The  Pupil  at  Work 131 

Attention  and  Apperception  :   Principles 142 

Attention  and  Apperception  :   Methods 154 

Questions 169 

The  Class  as  a  Social  Institution 182 

The  Spiritual  Goal 195  *- 

The  Ideal  Teacher  :  Jesus 210  *■ 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


This  book  contains  no  bibliography  and  no  list  of  references  for 
each  lesson.  It  is  to  be  hoped,  however,  that  each  training  class  will 
secure  a  little  reference  library,  and  that  each  teacher  will  read  at 
least  one  book  bearing  upon  the  development  of  the  pupil,  and  one 
upon  the  work  of  the  teacher.  The  following  books  are  recommended 
as  a  compact  list,  all  of  which  a  class  might  well  own  : 

To  be  read  i?i  connection  with  Part  I  : 

Harrison  :  "  A  Study  of  Child  Nature." 

Forbush  :  "The  Boy  Problem." 

Coe:  "The  Spiritual  Life." 

Addams  :  "  The  Spirit  of  Youth  and  the  City  Streets." 

To  be  read  in  connection  with  Part  II  : 

Burton   and  Mathews  :    ' '  Principles  and  Ideals  for  the  Sunday 
School." 

Du  Bois  :  "The  Point  of  Contact  in  Teaching." 
, — Bryant :  "  How  to  Tell  Stories  to  Children." 

Hervey :  "Picture-work." 

Coe  :  "  Education  in  Religion  and  Morals." 

For  those  who  wish  to  know  more  about  psychology  and  its  application 
to  teaching  : 
James  :  "  Talks  to  Teachers  on  Psychology." 
Home  :  "The  Psychological  Principles  of  Education." 


PART  ONE 

THE  PUPIL 


Lutheran  Teacher-Training  Series 


PART  I.— THE  PUPIL 

LESSON  I 

The  Teacher's  Work  and  Training 

i.  What  is  your  aim  as  a  Sunday  school  teacher?  What  is  the 
work  that  you  are  set  to  do  ? 

You  must  do  more  than  instruct.  It  is  not  enough  to  give  your 
pupil  a  knowledge,  however  true  and  full,  of  the  Bible,  or  of  Jewish 
history,  or  of  Christian  doctrine.  He  might  get  to  know  all  these 
things  without  doing  anything  worth  while.  You  must  reach  his  life 
and  mold  his  action. 

Yet  you  must  do  more  than  train  your  pupil  in  right  habits  of 
action.  Animals  can  be  trained.  You  want,  more  than  the  action, 
the  will  behind  it.  Your  pupil  is  to  become  capable  of  acting  for  him- 
self, in  a  voluntary,  self-initiated  expression  of  what  he  knows  and  be- 
lieves. Huxley  spoke  unworthily  when  he  said  that  if  anyone  could 
wind  him  up  like  an  eight-day  clock,  and  guarantee  that  all  his  life  he 
would  do  nothing  but  perfectly  right  actions,  he  would  close  the  bar- 
gain and  be  wound  up  at  once.  The  mechanically  perfect  Huxley 
would  be,  not  a  man,  but  a  clock  in  human  form.  Character  is  some- 
thing which  each  must  make  for  himself. 

As  a  teacher  you  aim,  then,  to  develop  a  personality.  You  want 
your  pupil  not  simply  to  know,  but  to  live  Christianity.  You  want 
him  not  merely  to  do  right  deeds,  but  to  do  them  of  his  own  will, 
knowing  what  he  is  doing  and  why  he  is  doing  it,  and  loving  the  right 
for  sake  of  the  Father  who  gave  him  that  freedom.  There  is  but 
one  real  test  of  a  teacher's  work.  God  and  men  alike  will  ask  you 
that  one  question.  It  is  not,  "What  have  you  taught  your  pupil  to 
know?"  or,  "What  have  you  trained  him  to  do?"  but,  "What  sort 
of  person  have  you  helped  him  to  become?" 

(9) 


10  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIEvS 

2.  Personality  grows  naturally.  You  cannot  build  it  within  a 
pupil  by  mechanically  cementing  ideas  one  upon  the  other  as  though 
they  were  bricks.  The  youngest  child  in  your  class  already  has  a  per- 
sonality of  his  own — living,  growing,  maturing.  And,  like  every  other 
living  thing,  it  has  its  laws  of  life  and  growth  and  development.  Just 
as  the  body  develops  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  its  nature,  so  the 
mind  develops  from  the  blank  of  babyhood  to  the  self-reliant  person- 
ality of  complete  manhood  in  accordance  with  definite  laws  which  by 
nature  belong  to  it.  If  you  are  going  to  help  a  child  become  the  right 
sort  of  person,  you  must  understand  these  laws,  just  as  truly  as  the 
gardener  must  understand  and  use  the  natural  laws  of  plant  develop- 
ment. 

It  is  the  aim  of  this  book  to  tell  you,  in  a  plain  and  simple  way, 
what  these  laws  are  and  how  you  may  use  them.  Its  first  part — The 
Pupil — gives  the  laws  themselves.  It  is  a  description  of  how  person- 
ality grows.  The  second  part — The  Teacher — applies  these  laws  to 
your  work.     It  deals  with  the  principles  of  teaching. 

3.  The  teacher  needs,  above  all  else,  to  understand  children.  But 
that  is  not  easy.  Children  are  not  "little  men "  and  "little  women." 
They  differ  from  adults,  not  simply  in  size  and  strength,  but  in  the  very 
quality  of  their  powers.  Growth  to  manhood  and  womanhood  in- 
volves a  change  as  real  as  that  from  caterpillar  to  butterfly,  even  if  less 
obvious. 

The  body  of  a  child  is,  in  all  its  proportions,  unlike  that  of  a  grown 
person.  Relatively  to  the  rest  of  its  body,  the  head  of  a  baby  is  twice 
as  large  as  that  of  a  man,  and  its  legs  but  two-thirds  as  long.  Propor- 
tionately, its  brain  is  six  times  as  heavy  as  the  man's,  but  its  muscles 
wreigh  only  half  as  much  as  his. 

The  mental  difference  is  even  greater.  The  child  has,  of  course,  a 
less  wide  experience,  and  consequently  fewer  and  less  adequate  ideas. 
His  mental  faculties,  again,  have  not  reached  their  full  growth.  But 
this  is  not  all.  A  child's  whole  way  of  looking  at  things,  his  feelings 
and  interests,  his  instincts  and  desires,  are  different.  He  sees  the 
world  in  a  perspective  of  his  own. 

In  late  years,  many  trained  observers  have  studied  children,  seeking 
to  learn  the  fundamental  characteristics  of  each  stage  in  their  develop- 
ment. The  more  important  results  of  this  systematic  child-study  are 
summed  up  for  you  in  the  first  part  of  this  book.  You  will  need  to 
supplement  it,  however,  with  your  own  study  and  experience.  Ob- 
serve children  for  yourself,  especially  in  their  spontaneous  plays  and 
games.     Be  mindful  of  the  possibility  that  you  may  misinterpret  their 


THE  TEACHER'S  WORK  AND  TRAINING  11 

words  and  actions,  and  attribute  to  them  thoughts  and  feelings  which 
only  an  adult  could  have.  Our  grown-up  point  of  view  almost  in- 
evitably distorts  our  interpretation  of  what  children  do  and  say.  One 
way  to  guard  against  this  is  to  go  to  the  "child  you  knew  best  of  all." 
Remember  from  your  own  childhood  how  a  child  thinks  and  feels. 
Get  back  to  your  own  point  of  view,  your  interests  and  activities,  your 
reasonings  and  attitudes,  when  you  were  the  age  of  those  you  now 
teach.  But,  after  all,  if  you  are  really  to  know  and  help  children,  you 
must  share  their  life.  "  If  we  want  to  educate  children,"  said  Mar- 
tin Luther,  "we  must  live  with  them  ourselves."  Nothing  can  take 
the  place  of  this  direct  personal  relationship.  With  it,  you  perhaps 
need  know  but  little  of  the  laws  of  the  mind  or  of  the  scientifically  ob- 
served characteristics  of  child  life  ;  without  it,  no  amount  of  training 
can  make  a  teacher  of  you. 

4.  The  Sunday  school  teacher  needs  as  careful  and  adequate 
training  as  any  other.  You  teach  the  same  children  as  the  teacher 
in  the  public  schools.  You  must  deal  with  the  same  minds  and  the 
same  natural  laws.  Every  child  has  an  inward  disposition  toward  re- 
ligion ;  but  none  has  a  separate  mental  faculty  for  it.  It  is  your  busi- 
ness, not  to  train  a  single  faculty,  but  rather  to  help  the  whole  child, 
with  all  his  everyday  powers  of  mind  and  heart,  to  become  religious. 

Yours  is  an  educational  work,  and  it  calls  for  the  best  of  educational 
methods.  It  is  no  fad  or  frill  that  you  are  teaching.  Religion  is  an 
essential  element  of  human  life,  and  its  highest  interest.  It  is  the  only 
sure  basis  for  personal  morality,  for  social  uplift,  and  for  good  citizen- 
ship. And  these  are  the  very  things  at  which  all  education  aims. 
Schools  and  colleges  are  maintained  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  this  land,  not  simply  to  make  our  children  clever  or  skillful,  but  to 
help  them  become  men  and  women  of  integrity  and  purpose,  efficient 
members  of  society,  and  loyal  to  country  and  to  humanity.  Education 
needs  religion,  therefore.  Without  religious  faith,  no  one  is  com- 
pletely fitted  for  life,  for  citizenship,  or  for  social  service.  No  educa- 
tion is  complete,  nor  is  the  realization  of  its  aim  assured,  until  it  has 
been  crowned  with  a  development  of  the  spiritual  nature. 

But  our  public  schools  do  not  give  this  development.  Religion  is 
the  one  human  interest  that  remains  unrecognized  by  the  State  in  its 
elaborate  provision  for  the  education  of  future  citizens.  The  Sunday 
school  has  a  place  and  responsibility  of  its  own,  therefore,  in  our  edu- 
cational system.     Upon  it  rests  the  completion  of  education. 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  the  Sunday  school  can  or  should 
adopt  the  methods  of  the  public  school.     This  much,  however,  is 


12  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

sure  :  The  Sunday  school  must  feel  its  responsibility  as  an  educational 
institution.  It  must  realize  that  it  shares  with  the  public  school  a  com- 
moTi  task.  It  must  do  its  part  of  the  work  of  education  with  as  much 
dcjiuiteness  of  aim,  soundness  of  method  and  efficiency  of  organiza- 
tion, as  the  public  school  maintains.  It  must  strive  so  to  co-operate 
with  the  public  school  as  to  promote  a  unity  of  development  within  the 
child. 

This  is  a  high  ideal.  You  undoubtedly  feel  that  many  things  in  your 
own  school,  and  in  most  others,  stand  in  the  way  of  its  realization. 
But  it  is  what  we  must  work  toward  ;  and  it  is  plain  where  to  begin. 
The  first  and  greatest  need  of  every  Sunday  school  is  well-trained 
teachers.  Begin  with  yourself.  Make  your  own  teaching,  at  least, 
what  it  ought  to  be. 

But  not  only  does  education  need  religion  ;  the  converse  is  just  as 
true.  Religion  needs  education.  "Go  ye  therefore  and  teach'''' 
was  Jesus'  farewell  commission.  Religion  is  more  than  feeling.  For 
sake  of  its  truth  and  permanence,  we  must  know  what  we  believe.  If 
the  new  generation  is  to  know  God  at  all,  and  to  do  anything  in  His 
service,  religion  must  be  made  a  vital  part  of  its  early  growth  and  edu- 
cation. The  Sunday  school  is  the  Church  of  to-morrow.  Martin 
Luther  was  right  in  his  estimate  of  the  work  of  the  teacher  : 

"  For  my  part,  if  I  were  compelled  to  leave  off  preaching  and 
to  enter  some  other  vocation,  I  know  no  work  that  would  please 
me  better  than  that  of  teaching.  For  I  am  convinced  that,  next 
to  preaching,  this  is  by  far  the  most  useful,  the  greatest  and  the 
best  labor  in  the  world  ;  and,  in  fact,  I  am  sometimes  in  doubt 
which  of  the  two  is  the  better.  For  you  cannot  teach  an  old 
dog  new  tricks,  and  it  is  hard  to  reform  old  sinners,  yet  that  is 
what  by  preaching  we  undertake  to  do,  and  our  labor  is  often 
spent  in  vain  ;  but  it  is  easy  to  bend  and  to  train  young  trees."  * 

This  estimate  of  the  teacher's  work  is  even  more  true  to-day  than  in 
Luther's  time.  The  world  recognizes  how  as  never  before  that  it  is 
in  the  school  that  society  best  shapes  itself  and  perpetuates  its  inter- 
ests and  ideals.  We  have  come  to  see  that  education  is  the  fundamen- 
tal method  of  social  progress  and  reform. f  Schools  and  colleges  are 
multiplying,  and  are  being  brought  ever  closer  to  the  concrete  inter- 
ests of  workaday  life.  Everybody  gets  an  education  these  days,  and 
one  can  get  an  education  in  everything.     Practically  no  human  inter- 

*  Sermon  on  the  Duty  of  Sending  Children  to  School, 
t  Dewey  :  "  My  Pedagogic  Creed." 


THK  TEACHER'S  WORK  AND'  TRAINING  13 

est  is  unprovided  for  by  the  public  schools  of  America — save  religion. 
Inevitably,  the  young-  will  come  to  feel  that  religion  is  of  little  conse- 
quence, or  else  is  absolutely  separate  from  the  ordinary  interests  of 
everyday  life. 

The  Church  is  awake  to  these  facts,  and  it  is  fitting  its  methods  to 
the  situation  it  faces.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  an  educational  revival 
of  Christianity.  The  teaching  function  of  the  ministry  is  being  empha- 
sized. The  "new  evangelism"  relies  upon  Christian  nurture  rather 
than  upon  emotional  revival  methods.  National  and  international 
organizations  are  earnestly  seeking  to  correlate  all  educational  forces 
into  a  unity  of  effort  that  will  include  morality  and  religion.  As  a 
Sunday  school  teacher,  you  are  stationed,  therefore,  at  the  very  center 
of  action.  Yours  is  the  strategic  point  in  the  fight  for  better  education, 
for  social  and  civic  reform,  and  for  the  kingdom  of  God.  You  cannot 
prepare  yourself  too  well. 

5.  You  have  God's  help  in  your  work.  You  are  teaching  His 
word,  and  you  have  the  promise  of  the  Holy  Spirit's  light  and  power. 
You  can  feel  the  Father's  nearness  as  you  come  to  Him  in  prayer. 
Without  Him  you  would  fail.  You  cannot  help  your  pupil  to  matur- 
ity of  spiritual  life  without  God's  presence  in  your  own.  Personal 
consecration  is  the  first  and  greatest  need  of  every  Sunday  school 
teacher. 

But  consecration  alone  will  not  make  of  you  a  teacher.  Spirituality 
does  not  insure  efficiency.  God's  help  does  not  relieve  you  of  respon- 
sibility. Paul  said  of  himself  and  Apollos,  "We  are  God's  fellow- 
workers."  That  is  the  best  text  in  the  Bible  for  a  Sunday  school 
teacher.  It  expresses  your  privilege  and  your  dignity.  God  will  not 
do  all  the  work  ;  you  are  more  than  a  tool  of  His,  more  than  a  mere 
channel  for  His  Spirit.  God  asks  your  help — that  is  the  greatest 
thing  life  can  bring  to  anybody.  The  consecration  He  seeks  is  not 
passive  submission,  but  a  consecration  of  work — of  brain  and  hands 
and  feet  that  are  able  as  well  as  willing  to  do  something  for  Him.  He 
asks  you  not  simply  to  trust  Him,  but  to  remember  how  He  trusts 
you.  He  has  faith  enough  in  you  to  give  you  a  piece  of  work  to  do. 
And  He  has  given  you  the  highest  work  in  His  power  to  bestow — to 
help  Him  in  the  shaping  of  human  lives  and  immortal  souls.  Surely 
you  want  to  make  of  yourself  a  real  helper  of  His  ;  you  want  to  bring 
to  His  service  the  highest  energy,  the  best  equipment  and  the  most 
efficient  methods  that  you  can. 


14  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

QUESTIONS 

The  questions  following  each  lesson  are  in  no  sense  meant  to  take 
the  place  of  an  outline,  or  to  serve  as  a  guide  for  study.  You  should 
study  the  lesson  for  yourself,  making  a  careful  written  outline  of  your 
own.  After  you  have  mastered  it,  you  may  then  turn  to  the  questions. 
They  are  meant  to  help  you  review  the  main  points  of  the  lesson,  as 
a  final  step  in  its  preparation.  The  leader  of  the  training  class  will, 
of  course,  make  out  his  own  questions. 

1.  What  is  the  distinction  between  instruction  and  training?  Show 
how  both  are  included  in  the  work  of  the  teacher. 

2.  What  do  you  understand  by  a  law  of  mental  development  ? 
How  does  it  differ  from  a  moral  law  ? 

3.  What  is  the  aim  of  this  book  ?    Of  each  of  its  parts  ? 

4.  What  are  some  of  the  ways  in  which  a  child  differs  from  an 
adult? 

5.  What  methods  will  you  use  to  study  children  for  yourself? 
What  are  some  of  the  difficulties  of  each  method? 

6.  Why  ought  religion  be  a  part  of  the  education  we  give  our  chil- 
dren? 

7.  Why  do  not  the  public  schools  give  any  education  in  religion? 
Ought  they? 

8.  Do  you  feel  that  the  Sunday  school  can  adopt  the  methods  of 
the  public  schools  ?    Ought  it  ?    Give  reasons  for  your  answers. 

9.  Ought  the  Church  make  use  of  the  educational  method  to  win 
the  coming  generation  ?  Compare  the  educational  and  revival  methods 
of  propagating  Christianity,  with  a  statement  of  the  relative  advan- 
tages of  each. 

10.  What  evidences  can  you  cite  of  an  "  educational  revival "  within 
the  Church  ? 

11.  Why  is  personal  consecration  the  first  qualification  of  the  Sun- 
day school  teacher  ? 

12.  Does  God's  help  make  your  own  careful  training  for  your  work 
any  less  imperative  ?    Give  reasons  for  your  answer. 


LESSON  II 
Physical  Activity 

i.  Everyone  recognizes  that  there  are  certain  periods  of  develop- 
ment through  which  we  all  pass  in  the  growth  from  babyhood  to  ma- 
turity, and  that  each  period  has  its  distinctive  characteristics.  But 
there  is  room  for  difference  of  opinion  concerning  the  number  of 
periods  which  ought  to  be  distinguished,  and  the  ages  at  which  boun- 
dary lines  may  be  drawn. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are  no  hard  and  fast  periods,  and  no  exact 
boundary  lines.  Growth  is  grajdual  and  continuous.  The  baby  enters 
into  sturdy  boyhood,  and  the  boy  into  youth,  without  our  realizing  the 
precise  time  of  transition.  Sometimes  new  powers  come  suddenly  ; 
but  the  rule  is  that  they  ripen  more  or  less  gradually.  Individual  chil- 
dren, moreover,  differ  greatly.  Some  enter  a  given  stage  earlier,  and 
pass  through  it  more  quickly,  than  others. 

The  most  definite  transition  is  that  from  childhood  to  adolescence. 
It  comes  usually  at  thirteen  or  fourteen,  and  is  marked  by  deep-seated 
physical  and  mental  changes. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Sunday  school,  we  may  recognize  a 
subdivision  of  the  years  before  this  transition  into  three  periods,  and 
three  periods  in  the  years  after.  The  six  periods  and  the  correspond- 
ing departments  of  the  Sunday  school  are  : 

(i)  Early  Childhood,  under  six  :  Beginners. 

(2)  Middle  Childhood,  three  years,  ages  six  to  eight :  Primary. 

(3)  Later  Childhood,  four  years,  ages  nine  to  twelve  :  Junior. 

(4)  Early  Adolescence,  four  years,  ages  thirteen  to  sixteen  :  Inter- 
mediate. 

(5)  Later  Adolescence,  four  years,  ages  seventeen  to  twenty: 
Senior. 

(6)  Manhood  and  Womanhood,  twenty-one  and  over  :  Advanced. 
2.  The   most  evident  characteristic  of  childhood   is   its  physical 

activity.  Sometimes,  annoyed  by  it,  we  elders  call  it  restlessness. 
A  little  child  is  incessantly  active.  His  tiny  legs  travel  far  in  a  day's 
play,  and  his  hands  are  always  busy  at  something.  He  is  seldom  con- 
tent simply  to  look  or  listen  ;  he  wants  to  go  to  things  and  handle 
them.  Every  impression  that  goes  in  at  his  senses,  it  seems,  comes 
out  at  his  muscles. 

(15) 


16  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  vSERIES 

3.  It  is  no  accident — this  great  place  that  physical  activity  has  in  the 
life  of  a  little  child.  It  is  nature's  provision  for  mental  as  well  as 
physical  development.  It  is  essential  to  the  growth  of  personality. 
This  becomes  clear  when  we  think  of  the  results  of  a  child's  phys- 
ical activity : 

(1)  Physical  growth.  This  is  the  primary  need  of  the  first  six  years 
of  the  child's  life.  It  is  the  time  of  most  rapid  growth.  A  child's 
weight  doubles  during  the  first  six  months,  and  increases  fourfold 
during  the  first  three  years,  and  sixfold  during  the  six.  Height  in- 
creases nearly  fifty  per  cent  the  first  year,  and  nearly  seventy-five  per 
cent  within  the  first  three  years  ;  while  at  six  it  has  been  more  than 
doubled.*  That  this  growth  may  be  normal,  the  child  needs  proper 
physical  conditions — good  food,  pure  air,  the  light  and  sunshine  of 
God's  out-of-doors,  and  plenty  of  sound  sleep.  And  for  the  best  real- 
ization of  all  these  conditions,  and  the  assurance  of  healthy  growth, 
there  is  constant  need  of  physical  activity  and  exercise. 

(2)  Physical  development  Because  growth  and  development  usu- 
ally take  place  together,  we  often  use  the  terms  as  though  they  meant 
the  same.  But  growth  means  simply  increase  in  size  ;  while  develop- 
ment stands  for  a  change  in  the  character  of  the  bodily  tissues,  making 
for  maturity  and  strength.  Sometimes  growth  takes  place  without 
development,  and  then  the  child  is  fatty,  flabby,  and  apt  to  be  sickly. 
There  is  only  one  way  to  insure  development — through  exercise.  Food 
and  air  and  sleep  may  cause  the  body  to  grow,  but  the  only  way  to 
get  good,  hard  muscles  is  to  use  them.  A  child  craves  physical  activ- 
ity because  nature  wants  its  body  to  develop.  Such  exercise,  more- 
over, develops  the  nervous  system  as  well  as  the  muscles.  Strength 
and  skill,  steadiness  and  self-control,  are  some  of  its  results. 

(3)  New  sensations.  The  child  is  a  discoverer  in  a  strange,  new 
world.  He  does  not  passively  wait  for  things  to  force  themselves  upon 
him  ;  he  pushes  out  to  seek  knowledge.  Each  bit  of  activity  widens  his 
experience.  It  is  really  an  experiment.  It  brings  new  sensations, 
new  information,  better  understanding ;  and  lays  open  new  possibil- 
ities. 

(4)  Use  and  meaning.  The  child's  physical  activity  does  more 
than  bring  sensations  ;  it  determines  their  meaning.  The  meaning 
which  anything  has  for  a  child  depends  upon  what  he  can  do  with  it. 
He  is  not  ready  to  appreciate  the  structure  of  things,  to  discriminate 

*  The  best  statement  of  the  facts  of  growth,  with  a  discussion  of  their  bearing 
upon  education,  is  Tyler's  "  Growth  and  Education."  Here,  and  in  succeeding 
chapters,  we  make  a  rough  use  of  figures  which  he  gives  exactly. 


PHYSICAL  ACTIVITY  17 

forms  and  textures,  or  to  comprehend  definitions.  He  is  interested 
primarily  in  the  use  which  a  thing  may  have,  and  especially  in  that  use 
to  which  he  himself  may  put  it.  Ask  any  child  to  tell  you  what  some 
familiar  nouns  stand  for,  and  his  answer  will  bear  witness  to  this  fact. 
"A  knife  is  to  cut,"  "Coffee  is  what  papa  drinks,"  "A  circus  is  to 
see  the  elephant " — are  typical  children's  definitions.  Professor  Barnes 
found  that  80  per  cent  of  the  definitions  of  a  list  of  common  nouns 
which  six-year  old  children  gave  him,  were  in  terms  of  activity  and  use. 
This  percentage  decreased  to  63  per  cent  for  chiklren  of  seven  and 
eight,  57  per  cent  for  those  of  nine,  43  per  cent  for  those  of  ten  and 
eleven,  and  about  30  per  cent  for  those  of  twelve  to  fourteen.* 

(5)  Habits.  A  thing  done  once  is  easier  to  do  again.  What  a  child 
does  becomes  a  very  part  of  himself  through  the  working  of  the  law 
of  habit.  Grouping  these  last  three  results — new  sensations,  meanings 
and  habits — we  see  that  the  child's  mental  and  moral  development  is 
in  a  great  degree  dependent  upon  his  physical  activity. 

4.  The  causes  of  a  child's  physical  activity  are  to  be  found  in 
deep  inner  laws  of  his  being.     He  is  so  made  that  he  must  be  active. 

(1)  He  is  impelled  to  act  by  the  energy  that  is  being  constantly 
generated  within  him.  Energy  always  seeks  an  outlet.  The  heat  of 
a  firebox  begets  the  steam  which  drives  a  dynamo,  and  the  electric 
current  gives  forth  light  throughout  a  great  city.  Human  energy  is 
no  exception.  It  finds  its  natural  outlet  in  physical  activity.  Much  of 
the  child's  activity  is  the  spontaneous  expression  of  the  bounding  life 
that  quickens  every  fiber  of  his  being. 

(2)  He  is  impelled  to  act  by  the  sensations  he  gets.  He  reaches  for 
everything  he  sees,  turns  toward  the  sound  he  hears,  plays  with  what 
he  touches.  His  senses  rouse  his  muscles.  His  impressions  call  forth 
reactions. 

We  can  see  why  this  should  be  so  if  we  think  for  a  moment  of  the 
structure  of  the  nervous  system.  It  is  made  up  of  three  classes  of 
cells — sensory,  associative  and  motor.  The  sensory  cells  receive  im- 
pressions ;  the  motor  cells  impel  the  muscles  to  act.  The  associative 
cells  connect  the  sensory  with  the  motor,  and  so  connect  impressions 
and  actions.  These  three  classes  of  cells  may  be  coupled  up  in  a 
myriad  intricate  ways,  yet  they  are  always  so  related  that  the  goal  of 
a  sensory  current  is  an  associative  cell,  and  that  of  an  associative  cur- 
rent is  ultimately  motor.  The  natural  result  of  every  sensation,  there- 
fore, is  an  action.  Every  nerve  current  tends  to  go  the  whole  way, 
and  so  to  issue  in  activity. 

*  Quoted  by  Bagley  :  "  The  Educative  Process,"  p.  80. 


18  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

The  nervous  system  has  been  well  defined  as  a  mechanism  for  trans- 
lating sensations  into  movements.  Its  function  is  to  receive  impres- 
sions from  the  outside  world,  and  to  respond  to  them  with  appropriate 
actions.  Strike  at  the  fly  that  annoys  you,  and  he  is  gone  before  your 
hand  touches  him.  His  nervous  system  received  an  impression  from 
the  movement  of  air  and  responded  with  an  action  that  took  him  out 
of  danger.  Strike  laughingly  at  a  friend,  and  he  will  dodge  the  blow 
before  he  thinks — his  nervous  system  has  connected  action  with  the 
sight  of  the  threatening  arm.  The  nervous  system  is  made  for 
action — and  to  adapt  actions  to  situations.  Every  sensation  becomes 
an  impulse. 

(3)  The  child  is  impelled  to  act  by  his  instincts.  His  nervous  sys- 
tem contains  certain  pre-established  pathways  which  incoming  cur- 
rents are  sure  to  follow,  as  they  go  on  to  discharge  themselves  in 
action.  These  pathways  are  natural  and  hereditary.  They  constitute 
great  inborn  tendencies  to  act  and  feel  in  certain  ways.  Fear,  shyness, 
curiosity,  imitation,  play,  acquisitiveness — these  are  only  a  few  of  the 
natural  tendencies  which  every  child  possesses,  which  determine  the 
character  of  his  reactions  to  the  things  that  present  themselves  to  him. 
Not  all  of  these  tendencies,  of  course,  are  present  at  birth  ;  but  they 
manifest  themselves  in  the  course  of  the  natural  growth  and  develop- 
ment of  the  nervous  system.  Each  stage  of  development  has  its 
own  dominant  instincts,  naturally  and  inevitably  determining  its  actions 
and  attitudes.  A  young  child  is  just  as  certain  to  carry  things  to  its 
mouth  as  is  the  little  chick  to  peck  at  any  small  object  within  range. 
And  at  a  certain  age  a  child  will  fear  the  dark,  a  boy  will  love  to  fight, 
and  a  youth  will  conceive  a  tender  passion,  just  as  naturally  and  with 
as  little  consciousness  of  the  reason  why. 

(4)  The  child  is  impelled  to  act  by  his  ideas.  For  him,  as  a  rule,  to 
think  is  to  act.  He  says  whatever  comes  into  his  mind  ;  he  goes  at 
once  to  seek  the  toy  of  which  he  happens  to  think.  He  reacts  as 
directly  to  the  presence  of  an  idea  or  memory  in  his  mind  as  to  his 
sensations.  It  matters  nothing  where  the  idea  has  come  from.  We 
express  it  by  saying  that  a  child  is  naturally  impulsive;  or,  if  the 
idea  has  come  to  him  from  someone  else,  that  he  is  very  suggest- 
ible. 

We  can  see  why  this  should  be  so  if  we  think  again  of  what  we  just 
learned  about  the  nervous  system.  Ideas  and  memories  are  always 
accompanied  by  nerve-action  within  the  associative  cells  which  make 
up  the  gray  matter  of  the  brain.  And  a  nerve-current  in  the  associ- 
ative cells,  we  saw,  tends  naturally  to  run  over  into  the  motor  cells, 


PHYSICAL  ACTIVITY  19 

and  so  to  result  in  action.     Ideas,  therefore,  are  dynamic  ;  they  become 
impulses. 

5.  These  principles  of  action  hold  true  for  us  who  are  grown 
as  well  as  for  little  children. 

The  law  of  motor  discharge  remains  true.  We,  too,  are  impelled  to 
action  by  every  nerve  current.  Every  sensation  calls  for  a  response  ; 
every  idea  is  an  impulse.  See  an  attractive  book,  and  it  is  hard  to 
resist  picking  it  up  ;  think  of  the  pleasure  of  a  tennis  game,  and  you 
feel  the  impulse  to  play.  Action  of  some  sort  is  the  natural  outcome  of 
every  nerve  current^  and  hence  of  every  sensatio7i  and  idea. 

Our  actions,  again,  are  reactions.  They  depend  upon  the  situation  ; 
we  fit  them  always  to  the  circumstances.  No  action  possesses  an  intrin- 
sic value.  ' '  There  is  a  time, ' '  as  the  Preacher  says,  ' '  for  every  purpose 
and  for  every  work."  To  do  the  right  thing  at  the  right  time,  we  all 
naturally  seek  ;  and  we  do  what  we  do  at  any  moment  because  there 
seems  to  be  something  in  the  present  situation  that  calls  for  just  such 
action.  Human  actions  are  seldom  without  motive,  and  most  motives 
are  rooted  in  our  sense  of  the  situation. 

To  the  end  of  life,  moreover,  the  development  of  perso?iality  depends 
upon  action.  It  is  what  we  do,  more  than  what  we  see  or  feel  or  think, 
that  determines  what  we  are  and  what  we  become.  Life's  real  mean- 
ings are  determined  by  its  deeds.  Thoughts  are  idle  that  make  no 
practical  difference.  No  bit  of  knowledge  is  really  learned  until  it 
grips  the  life. 

It  is  action,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  measures  the  final  worth  of  any 
life.  We  are  in  the  world,  not  to  look  on,  but  to  do.  He  lacks  man- 
hood who  lives  but  to  be  amused  by  the  passing  show.  Work 
bestows  meaning  upon  life,  and  brings  unity  to  its  scattered  impulses. 
Work  gives  a  man  dignity  and  poise  ;  it  shows  forth  the  divinity  that 
is  within  him.  Not  just  to  find  out  God's  wisdom  are  we  here,  but  to 
work  for  Him  and  with  Him  in  the  building  of  His  kingdom. 

6.  We  differ  from  little  children  in  the  voluntary  control 
which  we  have  acquired,  and  which  they  do  not  yet  possess.  We  are 
able  to  select  from  among  our  sensations  those  pertinent  to  our  pur- 
poses, to  prevent  immediate  reactions,  and  to  check  impulses  by  tak- 
ing thought.  Through  experience,  ive  have  gained  self-control.  The 
child,  on  the  other  hand,  has  had  little  experience,  and  consequently 
possesses  few  ideas,  and  is  able  to  grasp  only  in  a  very  limited  way 
the  meaning  of  the  situations  he  faces.  We  cannot  expect  him  to  have 
self-control.  These  great  laws  which  in  us  are  so  complexly  inter- 
woven with  the  results  of  experience,  appear  in  his  life  in  their  simplest 


20  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

and  clearest  form.  His  energy  must  find  immediate  physical  expres- 
sions. He  reacts  at  once  to  his  impressions,  and  is  drawn  here  and 
there  by  the  passing  attraction  of  the  moment.  He  thinks  of  but  one 
thing  at  a  time,  and  it  comes  right  out  in  impulsive  action.  He  is  an 
eager  bundle  of  instincts  of  which  he  is  not  yet  master. 

Yet,  be  it  remembered,  it  is  out  of  this  very  turmoil  of  activity,  all 
lacking  in  unity  as  it  is,  and  out  of  it  alone,  that  growth  and  develop- 
ment, experience  and  intelligence,  habit  and  will,  can  come.  And  so 
it  is  plain  what  our  attitude  toward  it  should  be.  We  will  seek  to  use 
and  direct,  rather  than  repress,  the  physical  activity  of  childhood. 
The  child  who  is  forced  to  be  quiet  and  to  sit  still  is  failing  to  get 
what  he  most  needs  to  build  for  him  a  sturdy  body,  a  sound  mind, 
and  the  right  sort  of  character.  "A  child  shut  up  without  play," 
said  Martin  Luther,  "is  like  a  tree  that  ought  to  bear  fruit  but  is  planted 
in  a  flower-pot."  More  than  that,  repression  works  within  him  a  pos- 
itive injury.  The  child  whose  energy  is  not  permitted  to  find  its  natural 
outlet  is  bound  to  become  nervous  and  irritable  ;  and  every  now  and 
then  the  tension  will  break  in  an  outburst  of  mischief  or  of  passion. 
Unhappiness  and  discouragement,  distrust  and  alienation,  sullenness 
and  defiance,  or  else  weak-willed  dependence — are  some  of  the  results 
within  a  child  who  is  continually  assailed  with  don't's. 


QUESTIONS' 

1.  Into  what  periods  may  we  divide  the  development  of  per- 
sonality? What  are  the  corresponding  departments  of  the  Sunday 
school  ? 

2.  What  is  the  distinction  between  growth  and  development? 
Show  how  physical  activity  is  essential  for  each. 

3.  Give  figures  to  show  the  rapidity  of  growth  in  early  childhood. 

4.  Show  how  the  child's  mental  development  depends  on  his 
physical  activity. 

5.  What  do  you  understand  by  a  sensation  ?    A  habit  ? 

6.  Show  how  sensations  impel  the  child  to  action.  What  do  you 
understand  by  a  reaction  ? 

7.  What  is  an  instinct? 

8.  Why  do  ideas  impel  the  child  to  action  ? 

9.  State  the  law  of  motor  discharge. 


PHYSICAL  ACTIVITY  21 

10.  In  what  sense  are  our  actions  always  reactions  ? 

11.  How  do  we  differ  from  the  little  child  in  voluntary  control  ? 

12.  What  attitude  should  parents  and  teachers  take   toward   the 
child's  physical  activity? 


LESSON  III 
Early  Childhood 

We  begin  the  study  of  the  separate  periods  in  the  development  of 
personality  with  early  childhood — the  first  six  years  of  life. 

I.  The  little  child  lives  in  a  world  of  play.  Most  of  us  grown 
people  live  in  a  world  of  work.  The  difference,  we  imagine,  is  that 
the  things  we  have  to  do  are  of  real  value,  while  what  the  child  does 
is  not. 

But  the  child's  play  is  of  real  value.  It  is  more  than  a  means  of 
occupying  him,  or  of  working  off  his  surplus  energy.  It  is  more  even 
than  a  means  of  exercise  to  promote  physical  growth  and  development. 
It  is  a  preparation  for  life.  Groos  has  shown  that  young  animals  in- 
stinctively anticipate  in  their  play  the  activities  which  will  be  of  use  in 
their  maturity.  So,  too,  the  play  of  children  develops  instincts  and 
powers  which  will  later  be  needed.  Girls  play  with  dolls  and  tea- 
sets  ;  boys  like  to  make  things,  build  houses  and  dams,  keep  store  or 
play  at  soldier.  Colonel  Parker  used  to  say  that  "play  is  God's 
method  of  teaching  children  how  to  work." 

More  than  this,  play  is  essential  to  the  best  general  developme?it 
of  body,  mind  and  character.     Coe  sums  it  up  well : 

"Quickness  and  accuracy  of  perception;  co-ordination  of 
the  muscles,  which  puts  the  body  at  the  prompt  service  of  the 
mind  ;  rapidity  of  thought ;  accuracy  of  judgment  ;  promptness 
of  decision ;  self-control  ;  respect  for  others  ;  the  habit  of  co- 
operation ;  self-sacrifice  for  the  good  of  a  group — all  these  pro- 
ducts of  true  education  are  called  out  in  plays  and  games."  * 

And  they  can  be  gotten  nowhere  else  so  easily  and  surely,  or  so 
early  in  life.  A  child  without  play  matures  quickly,  but  his  life  will 
always  remain  stunted.  "The  boy  without  a  play-ground  is  father  to 
the  man  without  a  job." 

The  difference  between  work  and  play  is  really  one  of  inward  atti- 
tude. Any  activity  is  play  in  so  far  as  it  is  thoroughly  enjoyed  ;  it  is 
work  if  we  do  it  only  because  we  must  to  gain  some  end.  The  negro 
stevedores  on  the  Mississippi  play  while  loading  a  steamboat,  with 

*Coe  :  "  Education  in  Religion  and  Morals,"  p.  143. 
(22) 


EARLY  CHILDHOOD  23 

their  songs  and  rivalry  ;  yet  baseball  is  work  for  the  professional 
player  who  must  keep  at  it  day  after  day.  The  advance  from  child- 
hood to  maturity  ought  not  to  mean  so  much  a  stepping  out  of 
the  world  of  play  into  the  world  of  work,  as  a  carrying  over  the 
play  spirit  into  the  responsible  activities  of  manhood  and  woman- 
hood. 

2.  The  play  of  early  childhood  has  its  own  distinctive  character- 
istics : 

(i)  It  is  play,  not  amusement.  The  child  is  never  content  simply  to 
watch  the  activities  of  others,  and  to  be  amused  by  things  done  for 
him.     He  wants  to  enter  into  the  action  himself. 

(2)  The  little  child  cares  nothing  for  games — that  is,  for  play  sub- 
ject to  rules.  His  plays  are  almost  wholly  free  and  unregulated,  and 
any  attempt  to  dictate  when  or  where  or  how  he  shall  play  is  apt 
to  meet  with  failure.  Through  imitation,  however,  simple  games  may 
be  taught.  If  you  play  in  a  certain  manner  with  evident  enjoyment, 
he  will  want  to  do  the  same  thing. 

(3)  Children  of  this  age  play  alone.  If  they  do  play  with  one 
another,  their  enjoyment  is  self-centered.  There  is  neither  rivalry 
nor  team  play. 

(4)  The  child's  play  is  at  first  wholly  a  matter  of  the  senses  and 
muscles.  He  uses  neither  in  any  accurate  or  definite  way,  but  finds 
keen  enjoyment  in  the  free  repetition  of  some  activity  or  sensation.  A 
natural  rhythmical  tendency  is  soon  manifest.  Jingles  and  songs  and 
rhythmic  movements  are  a  source  of  keen  delight,  while  many  a  story 
or  bit  of  poetry  that  is  not  at  all  understood  will  yet  be  enjoyed  for  the 
cadence  of  the  voice  that  reads  or  tells  it. 

(5)  Plays  exercising  the  memory  and  imagination  begin  about  the 
third  year.  From  that  time  on  to  the  end  of  the  period  the  child's 
play  becomes  largely  imaginative  and  dramatic. 

(6)  Throughout  the  period  the  child's  play  is  imitative. 

3.  Eager  and  impressionable  senses  are  characteristic  of  early 
childhood.  In  this  strange  world  where  the  child  one  day  finds  him- 
self, there  are  so  many  new  things  to  see  and  hear  and  feel  that  he  has 
little  time,  even  if  he  should  have  the  power,  to  think  over  his  experi- 
ences and  to  inquire  into  those  abstract  qualities  and  relations  with 
which  we  older  people  interest  ourselves.  The  mind  of  a  child  is 
intensely  concrete.  He  lives  in  a  world  of  perception,  rather  than  of 
thought.  Round-eyed,  quick  to  hear  and  eager  to  touch,  he  is  busy 
absorbing  the  world  about  him. 

And  he  is  not  content  simply  to  await  sensations  and  to  absorb  what 


24  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

comes  to  him  ;  he  actively  seeks  new  experiences.  Curiosity  is  one 
of  the  earliest,  as  it  is  one  of  the  most  permanent,  of  the  human  in- 
stincts. It  manifests  itself  first  as  se?isory  curiosity — the  tendency  to 
prolong  sensations,  to  experience  them  again,  and  to  seek  new  ones. 
Later,  ratio/ml  curiosity  appears — the  desire  to  learn  the  relations 
which  things  have  to  one  another,  and  the  tendency  to  draw  and  test 
conclusions  respecting  matters  not  directly  experienced.  The  curios- 
ity of  early  childhood  is  predominantly  sensory,  though  rational  curi- 
osity begins  to  reveal  itself  in  the  latter  half  of  the  period,  as  anyone 
well  knows  who  has  had  to  answer  a  child's  "How?"  "Why?" 
"What  for?"  and  "Where  from?" 

Curiosity  often  manifests  itself  in  undesirable  ways — in  too  persistent 
questioning,  in  pulling  things  to  pieces,  and  in  general  mischief. 
These  should  be  checked  ;  but  care  must  be  taken  not  to  injure  the 
instinct  itself,  or  to  destroy  the  child's  natural  thirst  for  knowledge. 
His  open  senses  and  eager  mind  are  your  heaven-sent  opportunity. 
And  the  world  needs  men  who  can  bring  to  its  problems  a  free  spirit 
of  question  and  discovery.  It  owes  to  such  men  its  science  and  phi- 
losophy and  the  achievements  of  civilization.  Your  problem  is,  not 
to  repress  the  child's  curiosity,  but  to  turn  it  toward  worthy  objects, 
and  to  develop  it  in  right  directions. 

The  child's  senses  will  drink  in  anything  that  is  presented  to  them. 
He  is  unable  to  discriminate  between  good  and  bad,  true  and  false, 
wise  and  foolish.  There  is  only  one  safe  rule  :  Do  absolutely  noth- 
ing before  a  child  that  you  would  not  have  him  copy.  Let  nothing  touch 
his  senses  that  you  would  not  have  enter  permanently  into  his  life. 
There  may  be  exceptions  ;  undoubtedly  some  things  which  a  child 
sees  and  hears  make  no  permanent  impressions  upon  him — but  you 
cannot  tell  when  the  exceptio?is  come. 

You  cannot  tell  by  questioning  a  little  child  what  things  have  made 
a  lasting  impression  upon  him — for  many  reasons  besides  the  likeli- 
hood that  he  will  not  catch  the  drift  of  your  questions.  We  all  know 
that  many  things  which  we  see  and  hear  modify  our  thoughts  and 
actions  in  ways  of  which  we  remain  unconscious  ;  and  this  is  far  more 
true  of  the  child.  Moreover,  the  memory  of  a  child  is  different  from 
our  own.  It  'is  exceedingly  impressionable  and  retentive,  yet  with 
little  power  to  recall.  A  child's  impressions  are  lasting.  Old  people 
sometimes  remember  the  events  of  their  childhood  more  clearly  and 
vividly  than  those  of  later  life.  Yet  the  child's  power  to  recall  any 
impression  when  he  wants  it  is  comparatively  weak.  He  has  made 
but  few  associations,  and  those  without  concentration  of  attention. 


EARLY  CHILDHOOD  25 

What  he  can  recall  is  no  test,  therefore,  of  what  his  memory  has  gotten 
and  is  retaining. 

4.  A  little  child  is  intensely  imaginative.  Imagination  is  the 
power  mentally  to  reproduce  sensations.  It  has  two  great  uses.  First, 
it  is  the  picture-making  faculty  of  the  mind.  It  enables  us  vividly  to 
see  and  hear  and  touch  absent  things  as  though  they  were  present, 
and  to  picture  abstract  and  spiritual  truths  in  concrete  ways.  Second, 
it  is  inventive  and  productive.  While  it  is  limited  to  a  reproduction 
of  past  experiences — it  can  create  no  images  for  which  there  have  been 
no  previous  sensations — it  brings  bits  of  them  together  into  totally 
new  combinations.  It  [gives  birth  alike  to  fairy  stories  and  to  great 
novels,  to  Handel's  oratorios  and  to  the  hypotheses  of  a  Newton  ;  it 
inspired  Columbus'  discovery  of  a  hemisphere  and  the  Wrights'  con- 
quest of  the  air. 

The  imagination  of  a  little  child  manifests  both  these  characteristics. 
He  thinks  in  concrete  pictures,  because  he  has  little  power  of  abstrac- 
tion, and  has  not  yet  learned  the  distinction  between  the  material  and 
the  spiritual.  His  inventive  fancy  runs  riot,  for  he  does  not  yet  feel 
the  stern  logic  of  facts. 

(1)  He  tends  to  personify  everything.  He  draws  no  sharp  line  be- 
tween the  animate  and  the  inanimate,  between  persons,  animals  and 
things.  And  as  the  first  and  most  definite  objects  of  his  knowledge 
are  persons,  and  the  terms  he  understands  best  are  those  which  stand 
for  actions,  he  interprets  everything  in  personal  terms. 

11  Jean  Ingelow  tells  us  that  when  she  was  a  little  girl  she  was 
sure  that  stones  were  alive,  and  she  felt  very  sorry  for  them  be- 
cause they  always  had  to  stay  in  one  place.  When  she  went 
walking  she  would  take  a  little  basket,  fill  it  with  stones  and 
leave  them  at  the  farthest  point  of  the  walk,  sure  that  they  were 
grateful  to  her  for  the  new  view."  * 

The  child's  conception  of  the  world  about  him  is  in  fact  akin  to  that 
of  the  primitive  savage,  to  whom  every  natural  object  seemed  alive. 
This  accounts  for  what  is  sometimes  called  the  "  superstition "  of 
children.  The  term  is  wrongly  applied — children  can  no  more  have 
superstitions  than  they  can  have  scientific  ideas.  The  fact  is  simply 
that  the  child's  conception  of  the  world  makes  tales  of  miracles  and 
impossible  wonders,  of  fairies,  elves  and  angels,  as  probable  as  matters 
of  sober  fact  ;  and  he  delights  in  them  because  they  appeal  to  his  love 
of  action  and  to  his  sense  of  wonder. 

♦Tanner:  "The  Child,"  p.  124. 


26  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

(2)  He  lives  in  a  world  of  make-believe.  His  play,  we  have  seen, 
is  dramatic.  Father's  walking-stick  becomes  a  horse,  himself  a  sol- 
dier captain,  and  sticks  of  wood  the  enemy.  He  turns  himself  into  a 
railroad  engine,  and  goes  even  about  his  errands  puffing  and  flailing 
his  arms  like  driving-rods,  backing  and  switching,  and  coming  to  a 
stop  with  the  hiss  of  escaping  steam.  For  hours  or  even  for  days  he 
becomes  another  person  or  an  animal.  Lonely  children  often  play 
with  imaginary  companions  ;  and  cases  are  to  be  found  where  such 
creatures  of  fancy  abide  and  play  a  very  real  part  in  the  child's  life  for 
months  or  even  years.  "  Let's  play  we're  sisters,"  said  two  little  sis- 
ters who  had  been  quarreling  ;  and  the  imagined  relationship  brought 
the  peace  which  the  real  one  had  failed  to  maintain.* 

(3)  He  makes  no  clear  distinction  between  imagination  and  reality. 
Personifying  natural  events  as  he  does,  he  may  fail  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  real  happening  and  his  interpretation  of  it.  Beneath  his 
make-believe  there  often  runs  an  under-consciousness  of  its  unreal 
character ;  but  like  as  not  he  forgets,  and  grows  really  afraid  of  the 
make-believe  lion,  or  cries  over  some  imagined  trouble.  It  is  this 
confusion  of  fact  and  interpretation,  of  reality  and  play,  that  is  respon- 
sible for  many  so-called  "lies"  of  children.  They  call,  not  for  pun- 
ishment, but  for  comprehending  sympathy  and  patient  training. 

(4)  He  comprehends  no  symbolism  save  that  of  the  imagination.  It 
is  perfectly  natural  to  a  child  to  use  symbols.  In  his  dramatic  play  he 
has  no  difficulty  in  making  one  thing  stand  for  another.  He  is  not 
hindered,  as  we  generally  are,  by  a  feeling  that  the  symbol  ought  to 
resemble  the  thing  it  represents.  Chips  of  wood  can  represent  sol- 
diers just  as  easily  as  the  most  elaborately  uniformed  tin  warriors. 
The  magic  of  his  imagination  can  transform  the  dullest  and  most 
prosaic  of  objects. 

Yet  he  cannot  understand  the  symbolism  of  grown  people,  and  is 
often  absurdly  literal  in  his  interpretation  of  figures  of  speech  or 
"object-lessons."  It  is  because  our  symbols  are  of  a  totally  different 
character  from  his  own.  They  depend  for  their  value  upon  some  like- 
ness to  the  thing  they  represent,  and  bring  out  the  truth  in  terms  of 
analogy.  Take  as  examples  some  of  the  figures  of  speech  which  we 
constantly  use  to  express  religious  truths — that  we  are  "the  sheep  of 
His  pasture,"  that  "our  cup  runneth  over,"  that  Jesus  is  the  "Lamb 
of  God,"  that  the  "cross  "  is  the  way  to  the  "  crown."  It  takes  more 
than  the  imagination  to  appreciate  these  analogies  ;  it  requires  a  rea- 
soning power  which  the  child  does  not  yet  possess.     Moreover,  we 

*  This  illustration  comes,  I  think,  from  Miss  Harrison  ;  but  I  cannot  now  find  it. 


EARLY  CHILDHOOD  27 

make  too  big  a  demand  upon  his  little  mind  when  we  expect  him  to 
deduce  from  these  concrete  figures  an  abstract  spiritual  truth  whose 
reality  he  has  not  yet  experienced.  In  his  own  natural  symbolism  he 
lets  one  known  thing  stand  for  another  equally  concrete  and  well- 
known — chips  for  soldiers,  or  stick  for  horse  ;  but  here  we  are  ask- 
ing him  to  let  a  known  thing  stand  for  something  he  knows  nothing 
about. 

(5)  He  is  intensely  eager  for  stories.  They  must  be  full  of  action 
and  of  pictures,  simple  and  without  intricacy  of  plot.  They  must  lie 
close  enough  to  the  child's  own  experience  to  rouse  definite  mental 
pictures,  yet  have  enough  of  mystery  and  novelty  to  stir  his  feelings. 
They  must  have  a  climax,  and  must  lead  straight  to  it  and  then  stop. 
They  must  contain  some  rhythm  or  repetition  in  which  he  can  delight. 
Above  all,  they  must  be  told  by  one  who  himself  retains  the  spirit  of 
childhood,  and  who  sees  and  feels  the  things  he  tells.  Such  stories 
the  child  will  call  for  again  and  again,  and  often  he  wants  them  re- 
peated in  the  very  words  that  were  used  before. 

5.  A  little  child  is  credulous  and  suggestible.  He  believes  any- 
thing you  tell  him,  simply  because  of  his  lack  of  experience.  He  has 
no  fund  of  established  ideas  as  the  rest  of  us  do,  to  serve  as  a  basis 
for  distinguishing  truth  from  falsehood.  The  suggestion  remains  un- 
contradicted, and  issues  in  action  from  the  very  motive  power  that  all 
ideas  possess.  Many  little  letters  and  prayers  every  year  witness  how 
real  Santa  Claus  is  to  the  child;  real,  too,  is  the  "bogy-man"  who 
will  "  ketch  you  ef  you  don't  watch  out."  Make  light  of  a  little  tot's 
fall  and  heal  the  bump  with  a  kiss,  and  he  will  not  cry  ;  while  you  can 
bring  on  a  very  agony  of  tears  if  you  pity  him  enough. 

It  is  not  only  ideas  that  we  wish  the  child  to  believe  and  act  upon, 
that  have  this  suggestive  power.  Chance  remarks,  unthinking  actions, 
personal  attitudes,  are  often  more  potent  than  direct  suggestions. 
Objects,  too,  as  well  as  persons,  may  "  put  ideas  into  his  head  "  which 
are  hard  to  get  rid  of. 

6.  The  little  child  is  exceedingly  imitative.  Imitation  is  one  of 
the  earliest  of  the  instincts,  and  remains  throughout  early  childhood  a 
marked  characteristic  of  the  period. 

It  may  be  looked  upon  as  a  form  of  suggestion.  We  are  more 
likely  to  be  influenced  by  what  others  do  than  by  what  they  say.  At 
any  time  of  life,  the  action  of  someone  else  is  the  most  potent  of  sug- 
gestions. 

But  imitation  does  not  depend  at  all  upon  the  possession  of  ideas. 
It  is  often  reflex.     The  presence  of  a  stammering  child  at  school  has 


28  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

a  bad  effect  upon  the  speech  of  other  children.  The  temper  of  your 
class  is  likely  a  reflection  of  your  own.  Smile,  and  they  smile  with 
you  ;  frown,  and  they  will  soon  give  you  reason  to. 

Reflex  imitation  is  present  almost  from  the  beginning.  Dramatic 
imitation  we  have  already  considered.  It  appears  about  the  third  year. 
Voluntary  imitation  begins  a  little  before — when  the  child  purposely 
seeks  to  act  like  another  does.  His  repetition  of  words,  as  we  teach 
him  to  talk  and  he  tries  the  difficult  pronunciations  again  and  again  to 
secure  our  approval,  is  an  example.  He  imitates  single  actions  rather 
than  persons  ;  he  wants  to  do  something  like  uncle,  rather  than  to  be 
like  him. 

7.  A  child  of  this  age  is  naturally  self-centered.  He  knows  no 
motives  other  than  those  of  his  own  pleasure  and  pain.  His  little  acts 
of  generosity  are  done  only  for  the  approval  or  pleasure  they  bring. 
The  social  and  altruistic  instincts  have  not  yet  awakened.  If  he  plays 
with  other  children,  or  if  he  likes  to  be  with  others,  they  are  ministers 
to  his  own  enjoyment.  He  is  the  center  of  his  world,  and  everything 
and  everybody  in  it  exists  for  him.  The  word  "my"  is  the  great 
one  in  his  vocabulary.     Yet  this  is  not  selfishness  ;  it  is  simple  nature. 

It  is  tempered  by  the  fact  that  he  is  very  affectionate  and  is  keenly 
sensitive  to  the  personal  attitudes  of  others.  He  finds  the  greatest 
of  pleasure  in  a  smile  or  caress,  and  is  heart-broken  at  a  frown. 
A  boy  of  two  wept  bitterly  because  he  had  caught  a  look  of  sur- 
prise and  disapproval  on  the  face  of  a  visitor  when  he  had  struck  at 
his  mother.  A  week  after  he  saw  the  visitor  again.  "Do  you  re- 
member," he  plaintively  queried,  "how  you  looked  when  I  hit 
mamma?  I  don't  like  you  to  look  that  way."  The  child's  feelings 
are  not  deep  or  lasting — his  tears  come  like  April  showers  and  are 
forgotten — but  they  lie  near  the  surface.  There  is  truth  in  the  old 
adage  that  one  may  trust  a  man  whom  children  and  animals  like.  The 
child,  at  least,  instinctively  fathoms  the  dispositions.  Nature  has  put 
him  close  to  the  heart  of  men. 

Here  lies  his  defence  when  one  would  impose  upon  his  credulity. 
He  soon  comes  to  know  whom  he  can  believe.  His  faiths  become 
personal.  He  has  implicit  confidence  in  those  who  love  him,  and 
learns  to  reject  the  suggestion  of  meanness  or  of  ridicule.  We  are 
sometimes  urged  to  have  the  faith  of  a  child — and  rightly.  For  the 
faith  of  a  child  is  at  bottom  faith  in  a  Person. 


EARLY  CHILDHOOD  29 

QUESTIONS 

1.  What  is  the  distinction  between  work  and  play?  What  are 
some  of  the  values  of  play  in  the  life  of  a  child  ? 

2.  Describe  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  the  play  of  early 
childhood. 

3.  Why  are  the  little  child's  senses  more  impressionable  than  ours? 

4.  In  what  forms  does  the  instinct  of  curiosity  manifest  itself  in 
early  childhood  ?    What  should  be  our  attitude  toward  it  ? 

5.  What  are  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  a  little  child's  memory? 

6.  What  do  you  understand  by  the  imagination  ?  What  are  its 
functions  ? 

7.  Describe  some  of  the  ways  in  which  the  imaginativeness  of  early 
childhood  is  revealed. 

8.  Why  is  a  little  child  credulous  ? 

9.  What  do  you  understand  by  a  suggestion  ?  How  does  it  differ 
from  a  command  ?  How  does  an  indirect  differ  from  a  direct  sugges- 
tion? 

10.  What  is  reflex  imitation  ?    Dramatic  imitation  ?    Voluntary  im- 
itation ?    When  does  each  appear  in  the  life  of  a  child  ? 

11.  Is  a  little  child  selfish  when  he  takes  all  the  playthings  of  the 
nursery  to  himself  ?    Give  reasons  for  your  answer. 

12.  Why  is  it  best  that  a  child  should  be  self-centered  ? 

13.  Can  you  cite  any  illustrations  of  a  little  child's  sensitivity  to  the 
personal  attitudes  ? 


LESSON  IV 

Middle  Childhood 

There  is  no  evident  transition  from  early  to  middle  childhood.  Most 
of  the  characteristics  of  the  former  period  belong  to  this.  The  child 
of  six  to  eight  is  still  impulsive  and  suggestible.  He  is  active  and  rest- 
less, and  not  yet  able  to  give  sustained  attention,  or  to  concentrate 
himself  upon  a  disagreeable  task.  His  real  life  is  one  of  play,  and 
your  appeal  must  be  to  senses  and  imagination.  He  is  still  self-cen- 
tered and  the  creature  of  capricious  instincts  and  feelings. 

Yet  the  child  of  six  or  more  differs  from  the  one  who  has  not  reached 
that  birthday.  He  has  had  a  wider  experience,  of  course,  which  gives 
a  richer  meaning  to  every  perception  and  a  more  definite  control  for 
every  impulse.  But  the  great  difference  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  has 
entered  school.  That  gives  him  a  wholly  new  view-point.  His  world 
has  changed.  He  has  now  a  place  of  his  own  in  the  social  order, 
and  enters  into  a  wider  circle  of  companionship  and  a  more  definite 
round  of  responsibilities  than  home  or  kindergarten  had  made  pos- 
sible. 

i.  Physically,  this  period  is  one  of  rapid  growth,  though  less 
rapid,  of  course,  than  that  of  the  former  period.  From  six  to  nine, 
weight  increases  32  per  cent,  as  opposed  to  45  per  cent  during  the 
years  from  three  to  six.  Height  increases  somewhat  over  13  per  cent, 
against  25  per  cent  in  the  preceding  three  years.  While  the  death- 
rate  continues  to  decrease,  there  is  about  the  eighth  year  a  rapid  in- 
crease of  liability  to  sickness.  This  is  to  be  traced  in  part  to  condi- 
tions associated  with  the  appearance  of  the  permanent  teeth,  and  in 
part  to  the  relative  weakness  of  the  heart,  which  has  less  than  one-third 
of  its  adult  weight,  and  must  force  the  blood  over  a  body  which  has 
two-thirds  of  its  adult  height.  The  heart  is  especially  pushed,  of 
course,  by  muscular  exercise,  of  which  the  body  craves  a  great  deal. 
This  is  doubtless  the  explanation  of  the  quickness  with  which  an  eight- 
year-old  becomes  fatigued. 

2.  Physical  activity  and  play  characterize  this  period  of  childhood 
as  well  as  the  first.     But  there  are  manifest  differences  : 

( 1 )  Activity  is  more  purposive  and  controlled.  Whereas  the  younger 
child  found  delight  in  the  mere  activity  itself,  the  child  of  this  period 

(30)   " 


MIDDLE  CHILDHOOD  31 

begins  to  find  pleasure  in  what  he  can  accomplish.  Eyes  and  hands 
and  feet  are  used  in  play,  no  longer  in  mere  aimless  exercise,  but  for 
sake  of  some  success  of  quickness  or  accuracy  or  strength.  He  wants 
to  make  things,  to  achieve  something.  Yet,  be  it  remembered,  he  has 
not  developed  enough  control  to  be  able  to  hold  very  long  to  a  tedious 
task,  or  to  see  through  complications  and  conquer  many  difficulties  in 
the  pursuit  of  an  end.  You  must  give  him  simple,  definite  things  to 
do,  and  not  too  hard. 

(2)  Play  takes  the  form  of  games,  at  first  with  very  simple  rules,  and 
then  more  complex. 

(3)  The  child  no  longer  plays  alone,  but  with  companions  ;  and 
rivalry  and  competition  begin.  Their  games  provide  contests  of  power 
or  skill  in  which  each  strives  to  win. 

(4)  Imaginative  play,  with  its  little  dramas  of  make-believe,  reaches 
its  culmination  in  the  first  half  of  this  period.  It  continues  until  ado- 
lescence, though  constantly  decreasing  in  importance,  to  be  replaced 
by  games  of  the  competitive  sort.  In  this  period  it  often  takes  the 
more  definite  form  of  acting  out  some  story  that  has  been  heard  or 
read — a  form  in  which  it  may  well  be  used  educationally,  not  only  in 
this,  but  in  succeeding  periods. 

3.  The  child's  senses  are  as  eager  as  ever,  and  to  them  we  must 
appeal  in  our  teaching.  But  now  he  is  better  able  both  to  use  his 
senses,  and  to  understand  the  messages  they  bring.  His  years  of 
experience,  few  as  they  have  been,  enable  him  to  comprehend  much 
that  he  once  could  not.  School  life  is  widening  his  knowledge  and 
perfecting  his  powers,  and  casts  a  new  light  upon  everything  that  pre- 
sents itself. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  we  are  able  to  see  as  much  in  anything  as 
we  can  put  into  it.  It  is  not  the  mere  seeing  or  hearing,  but  the  mean- 
ing which  sights  and  sounds  convey,  that  is  important.  And  their 
meaning  depends  upon  what  is  within  one — upon  his  point  of  view  and 
his  ability  to  understand. 

We  always  interpret  the  new  in  terms  of  the  old.  We  grasp  the  un- 
known only  by  relating  it  to  the  known  ;  to  name  it  even  we  must  class 
it  with  some  past  experience.  A  little  girl  of  three  called  to  her 
mother  in  wonder  to  come  and  see  how  the  flowers  had  melted  in  the 
heat  of  the  sun.  A  bright  boy  of  the  same  age  called  a  ring-shaped 
ant-hill  a  doughnut,  and  put  a  young  uncle  to  confusion  by  asking 
whether  his  budding  mustache  were  an  eyebrow.  We  have  all  heard 
many  such  sayings  of  children,  and  are  often  amused  at  their  bright- 
ness and  originality.     They  are  but  simple  illustrations  of  one  of  the 


32  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

most  fundamental  of  all  laws  of  the  mind — that  new  ideas  grow  always 
out  of  the  old,  and  that  what  we  already  know  biases  our  interest  in 
novel  situations  and  our  comprehension  of  their  meaning. 

The  term  apperception  is  applied  to  this  process  of  getting  mean- 
ings. It  is  the  process  of  interpreting,  comprehending,  digesting  and 
assimilating  whatever  presents  itself  to  the  mind.  It  is  the  source  of 
many  of  the  teacher's  hardest  problems.  If  we  could  just  put  our 
own  ideas  unchanged  into  a  pupil's  head,  teaching  would  be  a  very 
simple  thing.  But  that  we  cannot  do.  We  can  only  present  words 
and  things,  and  the  pupil  must  understand  them  in  his  own  way  and 
from  them  construct  his  own  ideas.  What  meaning  does  he  get? 
What  ideas  does  he  form  ? — these  are  the  vital  questions  in  every  day's 
work. 

The  law  of  apperception  is  that  the  meaning  of  each  new  experi- 
ence is  determined  by  the  relations  it  bears  to  one' s  ideas \  instincts  and 
habits.  In  early  childhood,  we  have  seen,  things  are  apperceived 
from  the  standpoint  of  use  and  action.  The  child's  instincts  in  the 
main  determine  his  attitudes  toward  what  is  presented  to  him,  and 
hence  its  meaning.  But  as  experience  grows,  and  ideas  and  habits 
multiply,  they  come  to  serve  more  and  more  as  the  basis  for  his  apper- 
ceptions. 

To  understand,  therefore,  what  your  pupil's  experience  has  been, 
what  ideas  and  habits  he  has  acquired,  and  so,  what  point  of  view  he 
will  bring  to  your  teaching,  is  your  primary  duty.  He  will  interpret 
everything  you  say  and  do  from  the  plane  of  his  own  experience.  If 
you  can  talk  with  him  upon  that  same  plane,  and  express  your  ideas  in 
terms  that  belong  to  it,  you  can  be  reasonably  sure  that  he  will  get  just 
the  meaning  you  want  him  to  get.  If  you  cannot,  he  will  get  some 
meaning  or  other,  but  not  what  you  intend. 

It  is  especially  difficult  to  share  the  point  of  view  of  children  from 
six  to  eight,  and  to  make  sure  that  we  understand  their  apperceptions. 
Younger  children  are  more  dominated  by  instinct,  and  so  tend  to  look 
at  things  in  the  same  general  way.  Older  children  are  nearer  to  our 
own  plane,  and  reading  has  thrown  open  to  them  the  common  herit- 
age of  the  race.  Middle  childhood  is  a  transition  time — from  home  to 
school,  from  play  to  work,  from  instinct  to  will,  from  imagination  to 
reason.  Each  child  is  working  out  his  own  ideas  from  the  host  of  new 
experiences  that  are  coming  to  him,  and  he  is  bound  to  get  some  that 
are  strange  enough  from  our  standpoint. 

We  must  be  careful  not  to  assume  that  the  child  knows  things  which 
he  really  does  not.     A  number  of  investigations  have  revealed  a  some- 


MIDDLE  CHILDHOOD  33 

what  surprising  ignorance  of  common  things  among  children  who  are 
entering  school.  At  Boston,  of  two  hundred  children  entering  school 
in  the  fall  of  1880,  President  Hall  found  that  60  per  cent  did  not  know 
a  robin,  and  91  per  cent  an  elm  tree  ;  54  per  cent  had  never  seen  a 
sheep  ;  50  per  cent  did  not  know  what  butter  is  made  of,  and  20  per 
cent  were  ignorant  that  milk  comes  from  cows  ;  78  per  cent  did  not 
know  what  dew  is  ;  90  per  cent  could  not  locate  their  ribs,  81  per 
cent  their  lungs,  70  per  cent  their  wrists,  65  per  cent  ankles,  and 
25  per  cent  elbows  ;  21  per  cent  did  not  know  the  difference  between 
their  right  and  left  hands  ;  28  per  cent  did  not  know  what  a  hill  is, 
and  35  per  cent  had  never  been  in  the  country.  Speaking  to  the 
public  school  teacher,  President  Hall  draws  these  conclusions  among 
others  :  (1)  "There  is  next  to  nothing  of  pedagogic  value,  the  knowl- 
edge of  which  it  is  safe  to  assume  at  the  outset  of  school  life."  (2) 
"Every  teacher  on  starting  with  a  new  class  or  in  a  new  locality,  to 
make  sure  tliat  his  efforts  along  some  lines  are  not  utterly  lost,  should 
undertake  to  explore  carefully,  section  by  section,  children's  minds 
with  all  the  tact  and  ingenuity  he  can  command  and  acquire,  to  deter- 
mine exactly  what  is  already  known."  * 

Such  a  detailed  investigation  of  the  pupil's  ideas,  of  course,  cannot 
be  undertaken  by  the  Sunday  school  teacher ;  yet  the  spirit  of  these 
two  conclusions  should  possess  us.  And  our  task  is  really  very  much 
simpler  in  this  regard  than  that  of  the  teacher  in  the  public  schools, 
just  because  we  can  count  on  the  ideas  which  the  child  gets  from 
him.  There  is  one  very  definite  and  practical  way  for  you  to  get  into 
touch  with  the  child' s  apperceptions.  Visit  his  grade  in  the  public 
schools  ;  find  out  what  he  is  learning  there  ;  and  bring  your  teaching 
into  as  close  correlation  with  it  as  you  can. 

4.  The  imagination  of  middle  childhood  is  no  less  active,  but 
more  coherent  and  better  controlled  than  that  of  early  childhood.  We 
have  just  seen  that  imaginative  play  reaches  its  culmination  in  this 
period.     The  same  is  true  of  the  appetite  for  stories. 

(1)  The  child  is  as  eager  as  ever  for  stories.  They  must  have  more 
of  detail  and  of  connected  action  than  those  which  appealed  to  him 
when  younger.  They  must  be  dramatic,  with  plenty  of  life  and  move- 
ment, yet  with  a  unity  and  coherence  that  brings  them  nearer  to  the 
plane  of  reality. 

"  Here  is  opportunity  to  fill  the  mind  with  a  stock  of  images 
that  shall  represent  life  in  its  truth.     The  stories  should  not  be 

*  Hall  :  "  Aspects  of  Child  Ufe  and  Education,"  ch.  i. 


34  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

goody-goody,  nor  should  they  contain  any  effort  to  reveal  spirit- 
ual ideas  and  motives  that  are  beyond  the  child's  spontaneous 
interest.  What  is  needed  is  the  truth  of  life  embodied  in  simple, 
sensuous  forms,  especially  forms  of  outward  action."* 

(2)  The  child  now  makes  a  distinction  between  fact  and fancy :  His 
imagination  is  becoming  critical.  All  stories  were  alike  to  the  credu- 
lity of  early  childhood.  But  now  he  is  getting  perspective.  He  recog- 
nizes a  difference  between  stories  that  are  "just  stories"  and  those 
that  are  "really  true"  or  "could  happen."  Some  that  he  once  im- 
plicitly believed  are  now  called  into  question.  He  wants  to  know 
whether  fairy  tales  are  true,  or  whether  Santa  Claus  is  real. 

5.  The  fact  is  that  reason  is  awakening.  The  child  is  beginning 
to  grasp  the  relations  of  things  and  to  fit  them  together  into  a  con- 
nected whole. 

Only  the  tiny  baby  accepts  the  moments  as  they  come,  without 
question  of  whence  or  whither,  how  or  why.  As  soon  as  the  mind 
awakens,  the  little  child  seeks  causes  for  the  happenings  that  fill  his 
days.  He  finds  them,  we  have  seen,  in  personal  agencies.  He  inter- 
prets all  nature  after  the  pattern  of  himself,  and  peoples  his  world 
with  fairies  and  elves. 

Almost  insensibly,  however,  he  grows  away  from  this  conception. 
As  day  after  day  brings  more  experience,  the  regularity  and  conti- 
nuity of  natural  events  stand  out  ever  more  plainly.  Time  and  again, 
the  same  two  things  are  joined  together.  When  the  one  happens,  the 
other  follows.  He  comes  soon  to  look  upon  the  one  as  the  cause  of 
the  other — and  then  there  is  no  more  need  of  fairies  or  giants.  He 
has  come  to  see  that  things  cause  one  another.  Henceforth  he  seeks 
thing-causes. 

The  transition  is  not  made  all  at  once.  It  is  pretty  sure  to  center, 
however,  in  middle  childhood.  With  the  influx  of  new  ideas  at  school 
and  the  freedom  of  a  wider  companionship,  the  child  soon  outgrows 
the  myths  of  his  earlier  years  and  reaches  out  toward  a  more  rational 
comprehension  of  the  world  about  him.  It  is  a  time  of  eager  mental 
activity  and  of  endless  questions.  The  child  is  putting  his  world 
together.  It  is  a  work  of  thought,  not  merely  of  the  senses.  He  is 
learning  the  relations  of  things  to  one  another,  and  is  as  eager  as  he 
had  been  to  see  and  touch  in  the  first  place. 

We  are  apt  to  make  either  of  two  mistakes  in  dealing  with  the  child 
at  this  time.     One  is  to  demand  too  much  of  him,  assuming  a  reason- 

*  Coe  :  "  Education  in  Religion  and  Morals,"  p.  232. 


MIDDLE  CHILDHOOD  35 

ing  power  which  he  has  not  yet  attained.  He  reasons  only  in  terms 
of  sequence.  He  associates  cause  and  effect,  not  because  he  sees  the 
real  ground  of  their  relationship,  but  simply  because  they  happen 
together  in  time  and  space.  He  cannot  analyze  such  a  relationship 
into  its  elements  and  discriminate  the  essential  from  the  non-essential. 
He  cannot  reason  abstractly,  and  is  not  at  all  certain  to  draw  a  logical 
conclusion  from  given  premises.  All  this  must  wait  until  adolescence, 
for  reason  is  the  last  to  mature  of  the  intellectual  powers. 

The  other  mistake  is  to  fail  to  meet  the  demands  which  the  child's 
reason  makes  upon  us.  The  most  important  of  these  demands  are  ( I ) 
consistency  ;  (2)  openness  and  sincerity. 

(1)  Consistency  is  demanded  because  the  child  is  forming  his  own 
ideas  of  right  and  wrong.  He  forms  them  in  the  same  way  that  he 
does  his  ideas  of  physical  things — by  reasoning  from  the  sequence  of 
events.  Actions  are  bad,  to  his  mind,  which  are  followed  by  dis- 
agreeable results  ;  those  are  good  which  bring  pleasure.  Moral  laws 
are  to  him  simple  statements  of  cause  and  effect.  He  judges  actions 
solely  by  their  consequences.  It  is  plain  what  is  required  of  us.  We 
must  be  firm  and  consistent  in  our  dealings  with  him.  We  must  abide 
by  the  simple  laws  we  wish  him  to  learn.  There  must  be  no  excep- 
tions, justified  by  some  higher  bit  of  reasoning  that  he  cannot  compre- 
hend. We  must  see  to  it  that  always  bad  results  follow  bad  actions, 
and  good  goes  with  good.  In  short,  we  must  confront  him  with  a 
moral  order  as  inflexible  as  is  the  physical  order,  that  he  may  be  able 
to  formulate  definite  moral  laws,  and  that  obedience  to  law  and 
respect  for  the  right  may  grow  naturally  within  him. 

(2)  Openness  and  sincerity  are  demanded  in  our  answers  to  his 
questions.  The  mother  who  will  not  answer  truthfully  a  child's  doubt 
concerning  Santa  Claus,  because  "it  is  so  nice  for  the  little  ones  to 
believe  in  him,"  sells  her  boy's  birthright  for  a  paltry  bit  of  play.  He 
believes  her  until  the  truth  is  forced  upon  him  by  the  ridicule  of 
schoolmates.  She  has  deceived  him,  and  left  him  to  find  out  else- 
where and  to  suffer  in  the  finding.  Yet  he  ought  to  have  the  right  to 
come  to  mother  before  anyone  else  in  the  world,  for  the  truth  and 
with  the  truth.  There  is  a  barrier  now  ;  his  confidence  is  shaken — and 
then  she  grieves  in  later  years  that  he  does  not  come  to  her  with  his 
problems  ! 

The  teacher  is  faithless  to  his  trust  who  teaches  a  child  to  accept  as 
literal  truth  any  Bible  story  or  figure  that  he  does  not  himself  accept 
in  that  way,  because  "children  are  not  old  enough  to  be  bothered 
with  such  things."     Some  day  the  youth  so  taught  will  pass  through 


36  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

an  agony  of  doubt ;    and   it  may  mean  the  shipwreck  of  a  soul. 

We  need  to  remember  that  the  child  now  has  both  imagination  and 
reason,  and  that  he  will  continue  throughout  life  to  need  both.  We 
must  recognize  the  distinction  that  he  draws  between  "  just  stories  " 
and  "things  that  really  happened."  We  must  minister  both  to  the 
story-appetite  and  to  the  hunger  for  facts.  And — most  important  of 
all — we  must  show  him  that  there  is  a  vast  middle  ground  between 
mere  fancy  on  the  one  hand  and  the  plain  recital  of  fact  on  the  other; 
the  middle  ground  of  truth  presented  tmdey  the  forms  of  the  imagina- 
tion. "Faust,"  "Macbeth,"  "Enoch  Arden,"  "The  Idylls  of  the 
King" — who  cares  whether  the  events  they  tell  ever  happened  in  just 
that  way  ?  These  tell  more  than  facts  ;  they  feed  the  soul  upon  truth. 
Literature  is  more  than  history  ;  it  is  a  seer's  vision  of  truth  set  down 
in  pictures  that  we  too  may  see.  The  Bible  is  more  than  a  chronicle 
of  events  ;  it  is  a  divinely  inspired  interpretation  of  history,  a  book  of 
life  and  truth. 

No  distinction  that  life  will  bring  is  more  important  than  this  three- 
fold one  :  literal  fact,  imaginative  truth  and  mere  fancy.  And  now, 
when  the  distinction  begins  to  be  made,  is  the  time  to  shape  it  if  we 
would  have  the  boy  become  what  he  ought  to  be — a  man  of  perfect 
fidelity  to  fact  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  whole-souled  appreciation  of 
literature  and  art  on  the  other,  discriminating  in  both  the  true  from 
the  idle  and  the  false.  Give  both  the  truth  and  the  story  of  Santa, 
therefore,  the  myths  of  the  Greeks  and  Norsemen  as  well  as  primary 
lessons  in  science,  the  fact  with  the  figure  in  the  Bible  story.  Do  not 
be  afraid  to  answer  when  a  child  asks  whether  a  story  ever  happened, 
"No,  it  never  happened  ;  but  don't  you  think  it  tells  us  something 
true?" — and  show  him  just  what  you  mean.] 

The  child  is  not  ready,  of  course,  to  receive  the  whole  truth  on  every 
subject — in  fact,  not  on  any.  But  that  is  not  necessary.  To  hold 
something  back  is  not  to  evade  or  deceive.  We  need  give  only  so 
much  as  his  spontaneous  interests  demand  ;  and  that  must  be  in  a  form 
that  he  can  understand. 

Children's  questions  about  birth  and  sex  constitute  a  special  prob- 
lem, and  one  peculiarly  grave.  The  parent  who  evades  them  con- 
demns his  boy  to  find  out  from  companions  in  ways  that  are  full  of 
impure  suggestion.  Frankly  and  plainly,  without  preaching  and  with- 
1  out  mystery,  these  questions  should  be  answered  with  the  simple 
and  literal  truth — never  going  beyond  the  child's  spontaneous  interest, 
but  satisfying  it  completely.  They  are  not  for  the  teacher  to  answer, 
however.     It  is  the  sacred  duty  of  the  father  and  mother. 


MIDDLE  CHILDHOOD  37 

6.  The  child  of  this  age  is  still  self-centered  and  must  be  dealt 
with  individually.  He  likes  to  be  with  other  children,  but  the  com- 
petitive motive  is  strong  and  he  has  no  idea  of  subordinating  self  to 
the  good  of  the  group.  The  real  awakening  of  the  social  instincts 
comes  afterward,  in  later  childhood. 

The  instinct  of  imitation,  however,  leads  the  child  out  in  a  meas- 
ure beyond  himself.  He  now  imitates  the  doer  rather  than  the  deed. 
Instead  of  copying  single  actions,  he  wants  to  be  like  the  person  behind 
the  action.  He  begins  to  think  of  what  he  would  like  to  be  when 
grown  up,  and  his  choice  is  always  the  reflection  of  what  those  nearest 
to  him  are — father,  mother,  friend  or  teacher.  Your  influence  is 
never  greater  than  right  now. 

QUESTIONS 

i.  Where  shall  we  place  the  transition  from  early  to  middle  child- 
hood?   Why? 

2.  Describe  the  physical  growth  and  health  of  this  period. 

3.  How  does  the  play  of  middle  childhood  differ  from  that  of  early 
childhood? 

4.  What  is  the  process  of  apperception  ?  State  the  law  of  apper- 
ception. What  problem  does  the  process  of  apperception  set  the 
teacher  ? 

5.  Why  are  the  apperceptions  of  middle  childhood  especially  hard 
to  understand  ? 

6.  How  may  the  Sunday  school  teacher  best  make  sure  that  he 
understands  the  ideas  of  Primary  children  ? 

7.  How  does  the  imagination  of  middle  childhood  differ  from  that 
of  early  childhood  ? 

8.  What  proofs  are  there  that  the  child's  reason  is  now  awakening  ? 

9.  What  is  meant  by  the  statement  that  the  child  reasons  only  in 
terms  of  sequence  ? 

10.  Why  ought  we  be  consistent  in  our  dealings  with  children? 

11.  How  ought  we  meet  a  child's  questions  in  search  of  the  truth? 
Give  all  the  reasons  you  can  for  your  answer. 

12.  How  does  the  individualism  of  middle  childhood  differ  from 
that  of  early  childhood  ?    Its  imitation  ? 


LESSON  V 
Later  Childhood 

Life  is  unique  in  the  years  from  nine  to  thirteen.  The  boy  and  girl 
are  unlike  the  children  that  were,  or  the  youth  and  maid  that  will  be. 
Later  childhood  has  as  distinctive  characteristics  as  adolescence. 
"  Health  is  almost  at  its  best,  activity  is  greater  and  more  varied  than  it 
ever  was  before  or  ever  will  be  again,  and  there  is  peculiar  endurance, 
vitality  and  resistance  to  fatigue.  .  .  .  Perception  is  very  acute,  and 
there  is  great  immunity  to  exposure,  danger,  accident,  as  well  as  to 
temptation."  * 

Yet  it  is  hard  to  say  exactly  where  the  period  begins.  The  average 
child  enters  it  when  he  begins  to  read  easily  and  naturally ;  and  it  will 
be  best  for  our  purpose  to  let  this  mark  the  transition.  When  a  child 
can  understand  and  enjoy  books  for  himself,  life  acquires  a  new  range. 
The  whole  wide  world  of  literature  lies  open  before  him,  and  he 
plunges  into  it  with  a  mind  as  eager  as  ever  his  senses  had  been  to 
make  acquaintance  with  the  material  world. 

i.  This  is  a  period  of  slow  growth,  of  health  and  hardihood. 
The  first  marked  difference  between  the  sexes  appears,  girls  being 
quicker  to  develop  than  boys.  The  tenth  year  in  girls  and  the  eleventh 
in  boys  are  years  of  very  slow  growth.  In  both  sexes,  this  retardation 
is  followed  by  an  acceleration  which  heralds  the  coming  of  adolescence. 
Since  this  acceleration  begins  a  year  or  more  earlier  in  girls,  they  are 
apt  to  be  taller  and  heavier  than  boys  at  the  close  of  this  period  and 
the  beginning  of  the  next.  During  the  three  years  from  nine  to  twelve, 
a  boy  increases  in  weight  29  per  cent  and  in  height  less  than  1 1  per 
cent — a  less  rapid  growth  than  that  of  middle  childhood.  Girls  in- 
crease in  weight  37  per  cent  and  in  height  13  per  cent. 

In  both  sexes,  it  is  a  time  of  good  health  and  of  boundless  energy. 
Dr.  Hartwell's  tables,  compiled  from  a  careful  study  of  Boston  chil- 
dren in  the  census  years  1875,  1885  and  1890,  show  that  the  power  to 
resist  disease  is  highest  in  the  twelfth  year  for  girls  and  in  the  thirteenth 
year  for  boys,  f 

*  Hall :  "  Youth  :  Its  Education,  Regimen  and  Hygiene,"  p.  1. 
t  Hartwell :  Report  of  Director  of  Physical  Training,  1894,  School  Document  No. 
8,  Boston,  Mass.,  cited  in  Tvler :  "  Growth  and  Education,"  p.  269. 

(38) 


LATER  CHILDHOOD  39 

In  the  year  1907,  throughout  the  registration  area  which  contains 
nearly  one-half  the  population  of  the  United  States,  there  were  10,513 
deaths  of  children  from  ten  to  fourteen,  against  15,287  from  five  to 
nine,  18,359  frum  fifteen  to  nineteen,  27,876  from  twenty  to  twenty-four 
and  29,415  from  twenty-five  to  thirty.  There  were  over  one  hundred 
and  eighty  thousand  deaths  of  children  under  five  ;  and  in  each  of  the 
remaining  five-year  periods  up  to  eighty  there  were  more  than  thirty 
thousand.* 

2.  Independence  and  self-assertion  are,  to  fond  mothers  especially, 
the  most  obvious  characteristics  of  the  period.  "  The  child  develops 
a  life  of  its  own  outside  the  home  circle,  and  its  natural  interests  are 
never  so  independent  of  adult  influence."  f  And  now  certainly,  if  at 
no  other  time,  the  boy's  interests  reflect  the  activities  of  a  more  prim- 
itive generation.  Fighting,  hunting,  fishing,  exploring,  collecting,  go 
to  make  up  his  life.  He  is  more  likely  to  play  truant  or  to  run  away 
than  at  any  other  period.  He  is  full  of  daring  and  adventure,  of  dash 
and  go.  He  cares  no  longer  for  imaginative  play  or  for  fairy  stories. 
He  is  frank  and  practical,  and  has,  he  feels,  put  away  childish  things. 

3.  But  there  is  another  side.  With  all  its  independence  and  self- 
assertion,  its  primitive  instincts  and  love  of  adventure,  later  childhood 
is  amenable  to  law.  Its  "gang  spirit"  and  its  "hero-worship"  mark 
a  distinct  advance  in  moral  development. 

The  child's  social  instincts  begin  to  ripen  in  this  period  ;  and 
obedience  to  law  becomes  to  him  a  matter  of  social  well-being  resting 
upon  his  own  initiative,  rather  than  of  mere  habit  or  imitation  or 
authority. 

(1)  The  sexes  now  draw  apart.  Boys  and  girls  no  longer  share 
the  same  interests,  or  enjoy  the  same  games.  Boys  get  a  wholesome 
contempt  for  the  gentler  sex  ;  and  girls  can  see  nothing  nice  in  such 
rude  and  messy  creatures  as  boys  have  gotten  to  be.  In  the  latter  half 
of  this  period,  and  in  the  first  few  years  of  adolescence,  girls  are  more 
mature  than  boys  of  the  same  age.  They  develop  more  quickly,  not 
only  in  body,  but  in  mind.  A  high  school  principal  expressed  the  dif- 
ference in  a  striking,  though  somewhat  extreme  way,  by  saying  that 
the  average  boy  in  the  senior  class  of  a  high  school  is  little  more 
mature  than  the  average  girl  in  the  freshman  class  of  the  same  school. 

(2)  Social  motives  predominate  in  the  games  of  the  period,  which 
are  almost  wholly  competitive.  Some  are  games  in  which  individual 
competes  with  individual,  each  striving  for  his  own  success  and  glory. 

*  United  States  Census,  Mortality  Statistics  for  1907,  p.  282. 
t  Hall :  "  Youth  :  Its  Education,  Regimen  and  Hygiene,"  p.  1. 


40  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

But  more  and  more  the  boy  becomes  interested  in  games  that  call  for 
team-play  rather  than  for  individual  prowess.  He  begins  to  like  base- 
ball, basketball,  hockey  and  the  like,  and  even  tries  football.  In 
these,  the  best  player  is  he  who  can  fit  best  into  a  system  of  play,  and 
work  most  unselfishly  for  the  success  of  the  team  as  a  whole,  instead 
of  seeking  to  shine  individually. 

(3)  Team  games  call  for  organization ;  yet  even  aside  from  them, 
the  "gang  instinct"  as  it  has  been  called,  is  at  work.  Boys  and  girls 
of  this  age  naturally  and  spontaneously  organize  themselves  into  in- 
formal groups — the  boys  into  "gangs  "  and  the  girls  into  "crowds" — 
and  into  more  or  less  formal  clubs. 

Dr.  Sheldon's  study  of  such  spontaneously  organized  clubs  gives 
some  very  definite  information  concerning  boyhood  and  girlhood.  Of 
over  a  thousand  boys  from  ten  to  sixteen  who  answered  his  inquiries, 
851  belonged  to  organizations  of  this  sort.  Of  the  remainder,  many 
were  in  clubs  formed  for  them  by  adults,  and  some  were  thrown  with 
other  boys  so  little  that  they  had  no  chance.  Eight  hundred  and 
sixty-two  societies  were  reported,  and  623  fully  described.  Of  these, 
\Y2  per  cent  were  philanthropic,  3%  per  cent  secret,  4%  per  cent  social 
(for  "good  times"),  4%  Per  cent  devoted  to  literature,  music  or  art, 
8)4  per  cent  industrial,  17  per  cent  predatory  (for  exploring,  building, 
hunting,  fighting,  preying),  and  61  per  cent  athletic.  It  will  be  noted 
that  physical  activity  is  the  keynote  of  by  far  the  larger  number — 86  l/z 
per  cent  if  we  add  the  industrial  to  the  predatory  and  athletic  clubs. 

The  figures  for  the  ages  at  which  these  clubs  are  formed  are  as  fol- 
lows :  at  eight,  28  ;  at  nine,  44  ;  at  ten,  118  ;  at  eleven,  155  ;  at  twelve, 
164  ;  at  thirteen,  188  ;  at  fourteen,  90  ;  at  fifteen,  80  ;  at  sixteen,  34  ;  at 
seventeen,  11.  We  note  that  the  ages  at  which  the  most  societies  are 
formed  are  eleven,  twelve  and  thirteen.  Over  87  per  cent  are  formed 
between  ten  and  fifteen,  less  than  eight  per  cent  before  ten,  and  only 
1  per  cent  at  seventeen.  The  interests,  too,  change  with  age.  Pred- 
atory societies  are  at  their  height  at  eleven,  and  then  gradually  disap- 
pear. Athletic  societies  multiply  rapidly  until  thirteen,  then  diminish 
in  number.  The  interest  in  literary  societies  grows  steadily,  though 
never  very  great. 

Girls  and  boys  naturally  organize  in  separation  from  one  another. 
Girls  form  five  times  as  many  social  societies  as  boys,  twice  as  many 
philanthropic,  and  three  times  as  many  secret,  industrial  and  literary. 
On  the  other  hand,  boys  form  four  times  as  many  predatory  and  seven 
times  as  many  athletic  societies  as  the  girls — these  two  classes  forming 
but  10  per  cent  of  the  girls'  societies  as  opposed  to  78  per  cent  of  the 


LATER  CHILDHOOD  41 

boys.  "  Girls  are  more  nearly  governed  by  adult  motives  than  boys. 
They  organize  to  promote  sociability,  to  advance  their  interests,  to 
improve  themselves  and  others.  Boys  are  nearly  primitive  man  :  they 
associate  to  hunt,  fish,  roam,  fight  and  to  contest  physical  superiority 
with  each  other."  * 

(4)  With  this  awakening  of  the  social  instincts,  and  their  expression 
in  spontaneous  organizations,  there  comes  into  the  child's  life  a  new 
moral  force — that  of  the  opinion  of  his  peers.  He  has  entered  into  a 
social  order  of  his  own,  and  its  laws  become  his  standards  of  right  and 
wrong.  He  no  longer  imitates  parents  and  teachers,  but  his  own  com- 
panions, or  the  one  whom  the  gang  holds  a  hero.  He  cares  little  for 
the  opinion  of  older  people,  but  a  great  deal  for  what  the  "bunch" 
thinks. 

"It  is  probably  from  the  gang  that  most  boys  learn  first  to 
codify  their  conduct,  and  while  this  code  of  honor  is  imperfect, 
it  is  apt  to  be  pretty  sound.  This  list  of  'things  a  feller  won't 
do  '  soon  becomes  a  mighty  judgment  of  the  individual  con- 
science. .  .  .  Parents  may  have  slaved  a  life  long ;  they  may 
have  made  the  inculcation  of  morals  a  daily  care  ;  these  new 
companions  have  been  known  only  six  days,  but  they  are  Public 
Opinion."  f 

This  applies  also  to  girls.  In  this  period  boys  and  girls  alike  begin, 
through  association  with  their  own  comrades,  to  achieve  moral  inde- 
pendence. 

(5)  A  strong  sense  of  honor  is  characteristic.  A  boy's  funda- 
mental virtue  is  loyalty.  He  will  stick  by  the  rest  of  the  fellows 
through  thick  and  thin.  And  from  this  loyalty  springs  a  fine  sense  of 
what  is  honorable  and  true  and  just.  His  boyish  conceptions  of  these 
things  are  often  enough  distorted  ;  but  they  are  virtues  none  the  less, 
and  virtues  really  his  own.  If  you  respect  his  loyalty  and  rely  upon 
his  honor,  God  gives  you  quick  entrance  to  the  soul  of  a  boy.  But 
there  is  no  greater  sin  than  to  trample  upon  his  ideals  and  outrage  his 
sense  of  justice.  And  there  is  no  better  proof  of  the  worth  of  a  man 
than  to  have  a  boy  think  him  "square."  Judge  Lindsey  has  been 
saving  hundreds  of  the  street  boys  of  Denver  from  crime,  and  turning 
them  toward  worthy  lives,  simply  because  he  is  willing  to  take  "  a  kid's 
word." 

*  Sheldon  :  "  The  Institutional  Activities  of  American  Children,"  American  Jour- 
nal of  Psychology,  Vol.  IX.,  425-448.  This  chapter  uses  Forbush's  summary  of  his 
figures,  in  "  The  Boy  Problem." 

t  Forbush  :  "  The  Boy  Problem,"  pp.  20,  21. 


42  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

It  is  hard  to  pick  out  crucial  points  in  the  education  of  a  child,  for 
everything  is  important,  and  moments  may  be  decisive  that  we  least 
expect.  Yet  here,  certainly,  we  cannot  be  too  careful.  To  the  end  of 
one's  days  his  loyalties  make  his  life.  Ask  what  they  are,  and  you 
know  what  the  man  is.  Is  he  loyal  at  all  ?  If  not,  he  is  no  man.  Is  he 
loyal  only  to  a  group — to  his  own  family  merely,  to  a  political  party, 
or  to  a  particular  denomination  ?  Or  is  he  loyal  to  humanity  and  to 
God,  and  to  the  great  eternal  principles  of  right  and  truth  which  lie 
beyond  all  narrowness  and  party  strife?  These  questions  have 
been  settled  for  many  a  man  by  the  attitude  of  elders  to  his  boyish 
loyalties. 

All  this  applies  particularly,  of  course,  to  boys.  You  cannot,  even 
in  speaking  of  them,  mix  the  sexes  at  this  age.  Yet  it  is  as  true  of 
girls,  with  the  difference  of  perspective  that  is  cast  by  the  different 
social  life  into  which  they  now  begin  to  enter.  Every  mother  knows 
well  that  a  daughter  now  begins  to  have  "  ideas  of  her  own,"  which  it 
is  idle  to  seek  to  repress  or  to  expel  by  force.  The  wise  mother  is 
she  who  respects  the  daughter's  personality,  invites  her  confidence 
and  seeks  to  share  her  point  of  view,  and  so  by  companionship, 
rather  than  by  domination,  leads  her  into  clear-sighted,  self-reliant 
womanhood. 

4.  This  is  the  period  of  life's  first  idealism.  Boys  and  girls  now 
begin  to  form  ideals  for  themselves. 

These  first  ideals  are  concrete.  They  are  found  always  in  some 
person.  Later  childhood  has  well  been  called  the  age  of  hero- 
worship.  Middle  childhood  imitates  persons,  but  not  as  ideals; 
adolescence  conceives  ideals,  but  not  in  personal  terms.  Now,  ideal 
and  person  are  inseparable.  The  boy  worships  his  hero  because  he 
sees  in  him  the  embodiment  of  an  inward  longing  of  his  own;  and  he 
loves  strength  and  courage,  manliness  and  truth,  not  in  and  for  them- 
selves, but  for  what  they  actually  accomplish  in  the  person  of  one 
about  whom  achievement  casts  its  glamor.  You  cannot  help  a  boy  or 
girl  of  this  age  by  talking  of  ideals  in  general  and  in  the  abstract.  You 
must  set  before  them  ahero. 

But  that  is  not  easy.  Heroes  are  not  made  to  order,  or  worshiped 
according  to  precept.  Boys  especially  seem  apt  enough  to  idealize 
wrong  characters,  and  perversely  fail  to  be  attracted  by  the  heroes  we 
would  press  upon  them.  Earlier  in  life,  the  child  had  imitated  those 
whom  he  knew  best — father,  mother  or  teacher.  Then  their  word 
was  law,  and  to  be  like  them  his  dearest'wish.  But  that  time  is  pass- 
ing.    Life  is  reaching  beyond   home  and  school.     Its  heroes  come 


LATER  CHILDHOOD  43 

from  the  new  worlds  just  opening  to  the  vision  of  boyhood  and  girl- 
hood. They  must  be  in  some  degree  removed  from  the  ordinary 
round  of  humdrum  and  familiar  things.  They  must  have  something  of 
that  mystery  .which  always  surrounds  an  object  of  worship.  Boys  are 
more  apt  to  get  their  heroes  from  the  world  about  them,  girls  from 
their  reading,  from  history  or  fiction.  Boys  always  idealize  men,  while 
girls  may  choose  either  men  or  women. 

It  is  achievement  that  makes  a  hero.  Men  who  can  do  things  well, 
men  who  can  get  results,  men  who  can  in  anything,  are  the  boy's 
heroes  just  as  they  are  ours.  Because  his  instincts  and  interests  are 
primitive,  he  is  most  ready  to  idealize  physical  strength  or  skill  or 
daring.  He  will  worship  the  leader  of  the  gang,  the  football  captain 
or  the  star  pitcher,  the  town's  best  hunter  or  fisherman.  But  it  is 
only  because  he  is  not  yet  able  to  realize  achievements  of  a  different 
sort.  As  fast  as  he  becomes  able  to  comprehend  the  work  of  Edison, 
of  Lincoln,  of  Luther,  he  is  ready  to  pay  tribute  to  strength  of  intellect 
and  heart  and  will. 

The  counsel  is  simple  but  hard  to  live  up  to.  If  you  would  be  a 
hero  to  the  boys  of  your  class — and  you  must  be  if  you  are  really  to 
influence  them  as  you  should — you  need  only  succeed  in  what  you  do 
before  them.  It  may  be  that  you  are  able  to  approach  them  from  the 
physical  side,  and  are  fortunate  enough  to  win  them  because  of  your 
athletic  prowess.  But  that  is  not  always  essential,  and  that  alone  is 
never  enough.  The  one  thing  needful  is  that  you  be  absolute  master 
of  yourself  and  your  work.  Teach  well,  live  strongly,  do  things,  get 
results,  and  you  will  have  the  influence  you  wish.  Heroism,  like  the 
kingdom  of  God,  "cometh  not  with  observation."  He  soonest  be- 
comes a  hero  who  thinks  least  of  it,  but  most  of  the  things  he  is  set 
to  do. 

The  principle  tells  us,  too,  how  to  present  Jesus  to  our  pupils.  It 
must  be  as  ajirro,  in  the  sheer  strength  of  His  manhood  and  His 
achievements.  Talk  of  what  He  did,  not  of  what  He  was.  At  this 
age,  children  will  not  love  Him  for  His  goodness,  but  they  will  learn 
to  love  goodness  because  they  honor  Him  and  His  deeds.  Do  not 
talk  much,  however,  about  His  being  a  hero  ;  and  certainly  do  not 
ask  your  pupils  to  call  Him  one.  There  are  some  things  in  life  that 
cannot  stand  much  talking  about — heroism  and  loyalty  are  among 
them.  Simply  present  His  life  and  its  deeds  so  vividly  and  concretely 
that  the  strength  and  power  of  His  personality  cannot  help  but  shine 
through. 

5.  At  no  time  of  life  is  there  a  greater  hunger   for   books   and 


44  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

reading  than  now.  Most  of  us  can  remember  how  eagerly  we 
awaited  the  weekly  arrival  of  the  Youth's  Companioti,  or  how  we 
pored  over  Henty  and  Alger  and  Oliver  Optic.  What  woman  can 
forget  her  girlhood's  delight  in  Louisa  Alcott  and  the  Elsie  books? 

The  teacher  could  ask  for  no  better  opportunity  than  is  afforded  by 
this  insatiable  demand  of  later  childhood  for  something  to  read.  And 
it  is,  like  all  times  of  opportunity,  a  critical  point  in  the  development 
of  personality.  The  boy  may  easily  acquire  a  taste  for  the  "dime 
novel"  of  impossible  adventure  and  hair-breadth  escape,  the  girl  for 
mawkish  romance  ;  and  they  grow  into  the  man  or  woman  who  can 
enjoy  nothing  but  highly-spiced  and  frothy  fiction.  On  the  other 
hand,  children  who  are  given  books  too  serious  may  lose  entirely 
the  desire  to  read,  and  become  those  pitiable  beings — men  who 
never  read,  except  the  newspaper,  and  women  whose  only  litera- 
ture is  in  the  oral  form  of  gossip.  Give  a  boy  "goody-goody" 
books — the  typical  Sunday  school  library  books  of  a  few  years  ago — 
and  you  may  turn  him,  not  only  against  reading,  but  against  religion 
itself. 

We  make  a  mistake  if  we  treat  the  child's  reading  either  as  a  mere 
amusement  or  as  a  sugar-coat  for  a  moral.  To  the  end  of  life,  the  love 
of  good  literature  remains  one  of  its  mightiest  spiritual  forces.  The 
child  must  learn  to  love  the  best.  It  is  as  important  that  you  guide 
him  to  great  fiction  and  poetry,  to  well-written  biography  and  history, 
as  that  you  teach  him  Bible  verses.  It  is  better  to  co-operate  with  the 
town  library  than  to  attempt  to  provide  a  Sunday  school  library, 
because  of  the  wider  resources  the  public  institution  is  apt  to  afford. 
It  is  your  privilege  to  put  your  pupil  in  touch  with  the  literary  heritage 
of  the  race.  Pick  things  that  he  can  comprehend  ;  but  do  not  be  afraid 
of  the  best.  "Periods  which  no  master  has  described,  whose  spirit  no 
poet  breathes,"  says  Herbart,  "are  of  little  value  to  education." 
Books  of  real  insight  into  life  and  of  genuine  literary  value,  books  of 
truth  caught  by  the  imagination  and  felt  within,  will  grip  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  children  as  they  do  our  own. 

6.  Habits  are  more  easily  formed  in  this  period  than  at  any  other 
time  of  life,  and  are  more  lasting.  A  multitude  of  brain  cells  are  just 
maturing.  Impressions  are  easy,  and  connections  between  cells 
quickly  established.  Every  boy  knows  that  if  he  is  ever  to  become  a 
great  baseball  player  he  must  begin  now.  Later  he  will  not  be  plastic 
enough  to  get  the  finer  knack  of  the  man  who  "  handles  himself  as  if 
he  were  born  to  it." 

It  follows  that  memory  is  best  in  these  years,  for  memory,  as  we 


LATER  CHILDHOOD  45 

shall  see,  is  after  all  a  kind  of  habit.  It  is  the  time  for  drill  work  in 
school.  Repetition  will  now  fix  anything  in  the  mind,  whether  it  be 
understood  or  not,  and  many  a  glib  answer  will  deceive  us  into  think- 
ing that  the  pupil  has  really  grasped  our  teaching.  The  boy  will  learn 
his  daily  lessons  word  for  word  with  only  a  couple  of  readings,  keep 
them  until  the  recitation  is  over  and  then  let  them  go  forever.  If  he 
is  ever  to  learn  a  foreign  language,  better  now  than  later,  for  he  will 
soon  be  able  to  use  it  easily  and  naturally,  while  there  will  always  be 
some  little  hesitancy  or  artificiality  about  the  speech  that  he  learns  in 
later  years.  This  is  the  time  to  learn  Bible  verses,  the  shorter  psalms, 
and  whatever  else  should  be  laid  up  in  the  mind  word  for  word.  If 
you  keep  these  tasks  within  reason,  you  need  hardly  fear  repelling 
your  pupil.  Most  boys  and  girls  delight  in  them  because  they  are  so 
easy. 

7.  We  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter  that  there  is  a  marked  awaken- 
ing of  interest  in  religion  at  the  end  of  this  period  and  the  beginning 
of  early  adolescence.  The  child  is  approaching  life's  decision  time. 
We  must  keep  this  in  mind  throughout  these  years.  We  shall  not 
attempt  to  hasten  it ;  but  we  shall  make  ready.  And  if  the  child  of 
eleven  or  twelve  wants  to  make  a  public  profession  of  his  love  for  his 
Father  and  the  Lord  Jesus,  we  shall  let  him  join  the  church.  Happy 
the  little  one  who  has  been  so  brought  up  that  he  has  never  known 
himself  to  be  anything  other  than  a  child  of  God. 


46  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

QUESTIONS 

1.  When  does  the  average  child  make  the  transition  from  middle 
to  later  childhood? 

2.  Describe  the  growth  and  health  of  later  childhood. 

3.  In  what  sense  is  it  true  that  boys  of  this  age  are  like  primitive 
man? 

4.  How  do  the  games  of  later  childhood  show  that  the  social  in- 
stincts are  ripening  ? 

5.  What  is  the  attitude  of  the  sexes  toward  one  another  in  this 
period  ? 

6.  What  do  you  understand  by  the  "  gang  instinct "  ?    Tell  some- 
thing of  Dr.  Sheldon's  study  of  clubs  organized  by  boys  and  girls. 

7.  Show  how  public  opinion  enters  life  as  a  moral  force  during 
later  childhood. 

8.  How  should  the  teacher  deal  with  "school-boy  honor " ? 

9.  Describe  the  hero-worship  of  later  childhood.     Can  you  remem- 
ber any  such  hero-worship  of  your  own?    Tell  something  of  it. 

10.  What  opportunity  does  the  "  reading  craze  "  of  later  childhood 
afford  the  teacher?    Wrhat  dangers  does  it  involve  ? 

11.  What  is  meant  by  the  statement  that  the  nervous  system  is  more 
plastic  in  later  childhood  than  in  any  other  time  of  life  ?  What  evi- 
dence is  there  for  it  ? 

12.  When  is  a  child's  first  definitive  awakening  of  interest  in  religion 
apt  to  occur  ?  Is  a  child  of  eleven  or  twelve  too  young  to  be  con- 
firmed ? 


LESSON  VI 
Early  Adolescence 

There  is  a  world  of  difference  between  twelve  and  thirteen,  in  the 
mind  of  boys  and  girls.  They  are  all  glad  to  enter  upon  the  'teens. 
It  seems  to  mark  a  great  step  toward  that  goal  of  every  child's  ambi- 
tion— being  grown-up. 

And  they  are  not  far  wrong.  The  passage  from  childhood  to  ado- 
lescence is  in  fact  life's  greatest  and  most  definite  natural  transition. 
Rooted  in  the  development  of  new  physical  powers,  it  transforms  the 
mental  and  spiritual  life  as  well.  It  has-been  well  called  a  new  birth. 
It  is  the  awakening  of  manhood  and  womanhood. 

i.  The  term  adolescence  is  applied  to  the  whole  period  from  this 
first  awakening  of  new  powers  to  their  final  ripening  into  young 
manhood  and  womanhood.  Its  boundaries  cannot  be  exactly  fixed. 
The  age  of  puberty  varies  with  different  individuals,  and  is  earlier  for 
girls  than  for  boys.  It  comes  generally  at  thirteen  or  fourteen.  The 
end  of  adolescence  and  the  beginning  of  manhood  and  womanhood 
depends  a  great  deal  upon  circumstances.  The  boy  who  must  leave 
school  early  to  go  to  work,  the  girl  who  must  assume  the  responsi- 
bilities of  a  household,  mature  quickly.  The  complexity  of  modern 
life,  on  the  other  hand,  and  the  elaborate  education  it  demands,  have 
lengthened  adolescence.  The  end  of  the  period  comes  more  often  at 
twenty-four  or  twenty-five  than  at  twenty-one,  which  is  the  age  recog- 
nized by  law. 

For  our  purpose,  however,  it  will  be  best  to  regard  the  thirteenth 
birthday  as  the  beginning  of  adolescence,  and  the  twenty-first  as  its 
end — simply  because  the  Sunday  school  had  best  recognize  those 
transitions  which  are  definitely  acknowledged  as  such  by  the  pupil 
himself.  No  boy  or  girl  in  the  'teens  likes  to  be  classed  with  the 
children  ;  and  the  young  man  or  woman  of  twenty-one  feels  a  right  to 
all  that  the  attainment  of  legal  majority  implies. 

This  period,  again,  may  be  divided  at  the  seventeenth  birthday. 
Early  adolescence  thus  covers  four  years,  ages  thirteen  to  sixteen ; 
and  later  adolescence,  four  years,  ages  seventeen  to  twenty. 

2.  Physically,  early  adolescence  is  a  time  of  very  rapid  growth, 
both  in  height  and  weight.     During  the  three  years  from  the  twelfth 

(47) 


48  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

birthday  to  the  fifteenth,  boys  increase  in  weight  40  per  cent  and  in 
height  14  per  cent,  while  girls  increase  in  weight  36  per  cent  and  in 
height  10  per  cent.  At  fifteen  a  boy  has  attained  92  per  cent  of  his 
adult  height  and  76  per  cent  of  his  adult  weight ;  girls  have  reached  in 
height  97  per  cent  and  in  weight  90  per  cent  of  their  full  growth.  After 
Seventeen  girls  almost  cease  to  grow,  and  boys  grow  comparatively 
little,  that  mainly  in  weight. 

The  years  of  most  rapid  growth  in  height  are  the  twelfth  and  thir- 
teenth for  girls,  and  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  for  boys.  In  weight, 
girls  grow  most  rapidly  from  the  twelfth  -to  the  fifteenth  years,  boys 
from  the  thirteenth  to  the  seventeenth.  Girls  are  taller  than  boys  from 
the  twelfth  to  the  fifteenth  years,  and  heavier  from  the  thirteenth  to  the 
fifteenth.  After  fifteen  boys  exceed  both  in  height  and  weight.  The 
most  profound  changes  of  these  years,  of  course,  are  those  connected 
with  the  development  of  the  powers  of  sex. 

This  is  a  time  of  vigor  and  energy.  While  there  is  an  increase  in 
liability  to  sickness  just  before  puberty,  this  declines  again  imme- 
diately after  ;  and  the  power  to  resist  disease  remains  high  throughout 
the  period.  During  just  those  years,  in  fact,  when  boys  and  girls 
approaching  puberty  are  most  apt  to  be  sickly,  they  are  least  likely  to 
die.  In  the  last  chapter  we  saw  that  the  period  from  the  tenth  to  the 
fifteenth  birthday  contains  less  deaths  than  any  other  five-year  period. 
According  to  the  census  of  1900,  the  death  rate  for  the  registration 
area  of  the  United  States  was  3.3  per  thousand  for  the  period  from  ten 
to  fourteen,  against  5.2  from  five  to  nine,  5.2  from  fifteen  to  nineteen, 
and  7.5  from  twenty  to  twenty-four,  with  increasing  rates  for  each  suc- 
ceeding period.  HartwelPs  tables,  previously  referred  to,  give  a  death- 
rate  of  4.5  from  ten  to  fourteen,  opposed  to  10.6  from  five  to  nine,  and 
7.9  from  fifteen  to  nineteen.  For  our  own  division  into  periods,  his 
tables  give  the  following  death  rates :  middle  childhood,  10.2  ;  later 
childhood,  4.7  ;  early  adolescence,  5.5  ;  later  adolescence,  9.0. 

3.  Early  adolescence  is  a  time  of  expansion.  Life  widens  in  a 
hundred  unexpected  ways,  and  may  take  any  one  of  them  as  its  final 
direction.  It  is  full  of  conflicting  impulses,  of  contradictions  and  sur_ 
prises.  Through  all,  however,  three  fundamental  characteristics  stand 
out  definitely  :  the  expansion  of  selfhood,  a  new  recognition  of  social 
values,  and  an  emotional  instability  associated  with  the  development 
of  the  sexual  instincts. 

4.  The  expansion  of  selfhood.  It  is  now  that  the  boy  really 
begins  to  attain  selfhood.  He  enters  into  the  heritage  of  instincts  and 
ideals,  purposes  and  ambitions  which  is  his  birthright  as  a  member  of 


EARLY  ADOLESCENCE  49 

the  human  race.  He  is  filled  with  a  new  sense  of  power,  and  with  a 
desire  to  use  it  as  a  man  should.  He  becomes  conscious  of  what  the 
world  is  doing,  and  begins  to  realize  its  worth.  He  is  eager  to  throw 
his  energies  into  the  real  things  of  life  and  to  do  what  there  lies  wait- 
ing for  him. 

A  time  of  independence  and  self-assertion,  then — but  independence 
and  self-assertion  of  a  totally  different  sort  from  that  of  later  childhood. 
Then  the  boy  was  independent  because  his  interests  were  primitive  ; 
he  was  absorbed  in  the  social  life  of  the  gang,  and  blind  to  the  greater 
world  beyond.  Now  it  is  the  independence  of  vision,  the  seli-assertion 
of  one  who  has  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  great  interests  of  humanity, 
and  who  feels  his  right  to  give  and  get,  on  his  own  account,  as  a  sharer 
of  the  big  world's  life.  The  man  is  stirring  within  the  boy,  and  it  is  a 
man's  independence  that  he  begins  to  assert.  He  has  lived  through 
the  primitive  interests  of  a  former  generation,  and  now  claims  his 
share  of  to-day.     He  is  one  of  us. 

This  expansion  of  selfhood  reveals  itself  in  the  desire  to  go  to  u  '<>/■£, 
which  every  boy  feels  at  this  age.  It  is  hard  now  to  keep  boys  at 
school.  They  feel  that  they  ought  to  be  getting  at  a  trade  or  begin- 
ning their  business  career,  and  that  it  is  time  they  were  making  money. 
Recent  studies  show  that  the  tendency  to  drop  out  of  school  is  great- 
est within  the  period  covered  by  the  last  two  grades  of  the  elementary 
school  and  the  first  two  years  of  the  high  school.*  Out  of  more  than 
two  thousand  children  answering  a  question  as  to  what  they  would  do 
with  a  small  monthly  allowance,  it  was  found  that  over  80  per  cent  of 
those  thirteen  or  more  said  that  they  would  save  it,  against  40  per 
cent  at  seven  and  eight,  and  about  60  per  cent  from  nine  to  twelve.. f 

Early  adolescence  is  genuinely  and  passionately  idealistic.  The 
boy  is  no  longer  a  mere  imitator  ;  he  is  more  than  a  hero  worshiper. 
His  version  penetrates  the  outward  act,  and  catches  the  spirit  within  a 
man.  He  begins  to  discern  inward  qualities,  and  to  feel  the  intrinsic 
worth  of  truth,  faith,  self-sacrifice.  And  it  is  not  simply  that  he  ad- 
mires these  virtues  in  others  ;  he  feels  them  to  be  a  forthputting  of  his 
own  deeper  self.  They  are  directions  in  which  his  life  would  expand, 
forms  in  which  his  self  would  find  expression. 

The  power  to  conceive  abstract  ideals  is  man's  crowning  glory  and 
strength.  It  lifts  him  above  mere  intelligence  and  brings  him  into  co- 
operation with  God  Himself.     But  it  can  become  a  pitiable  weakness, 

*  Thorndike  :  "  The  Elimination  of  Pupils  from  School."    Ayres  :  "  I,aggards  in 
Our  Schools." 
f  Monroe  :  "  Money  Sense  in  Children."  Cited  in  Hall  :  "  Adolescence,"  II.,  p.  393. 

4 


50  LUTHERAN  TEACJHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

for  it  makes  possible  a  life  of  contemplation  and  dreams,  whose  remote" 
devotion  to  transcendent  things  never  realizes  itself  in  action,  and  fails 
to  redeem  from  sordidness  the  present  deed.  So  the  awakening  of 
this  power  marks  a  critical  time  in  the  life  of  the  youth.  The  divine 
moves  within  him.  He  glimpses  the  things  of  the  Spirit ;  he  feels  the 
' '  torment  of  the  infinite. ' '  He  lives  for  that  which  is  not  yet  real.  He 
builds  upon  "the  substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things 
not  seen."  He  is  full  of  ambitions;  he  makes  decisions;  he  seeks 
service.  It  is  life's  very  spring  time.  But  he  must  be  carefully  dealt 
with.  His  ideals  are  yet  evanescent ;  his  decisions  not  abiding.  He 
resolves  things  too  great,  and  turns  back  in  disappointment  from  the 
plodding  path.  He  may  easily  enough  become  a  dreamer  and  a 
scatter-brain — a  mere  idealist.  He  needs  the  friendship  of  one  who  is 
older,  but  who  -has  not  forgotten  what  it  is  to  be  a  boy — one  who  can, 
through  comprehending  sympathy  and  co-operation,  help  him  find 
himself  and  turn  his  life  toward  its  real  usefulness. 

5.  The  social  instincts  now  mature  rapidly,  and  there  is  a  definite 
recognition  of  social  values.  The  independence  of  adolescence  is 
tempered  by  a  new  sense  of  social  dependence  and  by  the  desire  to 
be  recognized  by  others,  to  help  and  to  be  helped  by  them. 

The  social  forms  of  later  childhood  persist  in  the  first  year  or  two 
of  this  period,  but  are  gradually  outgrown.  We  saw  that  the  gang 
instinct,  as  witnessed  by  the  number  of  clubs  organized,  is  strongest 
at  thirteen,  and  then  declines.  It  is  not  that  the  youth  becomes  less 
social ;  rather  that  he  is  becoming  conscious  of  a  larger  world.  The 
opinion  of  his  fellows  remains  a  powerful  moral  force,  as  it  does  to 
the  end  of  life  ;  yet  now  he  begins  to  recognize  the  wider  bearings  of 
his  actions,  and  to  look  for  judgment  beyond  his  immediate  com- 
panions. Later  childhood  had  thought  that  it  possessed  reality  when 
it  lived  to  itself ;  adolescence  now  sees  that  reality  is  richer  far  than 
childhood  had  dreamed. 

Life  noiu  first  becomes  genuinely  altruistic.  The  youth  is  glad,  in 
pursuit  of  his  ideals  and  for  the  sake  of  others,  to  endure  hardships 
and  to  make  sacrifices.  He  wants  to  be  more  than  square  ;  he  feels 
the  worth  of  unselfishness.  It  follows  that  here,  too,  selfishness 
begins.  The  child  who  is  a  mere  bundle  of  instincts,  the  boy  who  has 
not  yet  felt  an  altruistic  impulse,  may  be  self-centered,  but  not  selfish. 
But  the  youth  who  feels  the  call  to  a  bit  of  sacrifice,  and  rejects  it,  lets 
an  unworthy  thing  enter  his  life.  Genuine  selfishness  exists  only 
when  the  higher  impulse  is  present,  but  is  denied.  It  is  in  adolescence, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  real  sin  begins — the  conscious  choice  of  a 
worse,  as  opposed  to  a  better  way. 


EARLY  ADOLESCENCE  51 

6.  The  development  of  the  sexual  instincts  underlies  every  other 
change  at  adolescence.  It  strengthens  youth's  aspirations,  and  colors 
its  social  attitudes.  Altruism  and  self-sacrifice  are  primarily,  in  fact, 
parental  instincts. 

New  impulses,  new  sensations  and  emotions,  new  temptations,  new 
problems,  new  meanings,  a  new.  conscience  and  a  new  heart — from 
without  and  within,  the  whole  world  and  himself  seem  alike  strange 
and  wonderful  to  the  adolescent  who  first  feels  the  race-old  forces  by 
which  life  begets  life.  It  is  a  time  of  unstable  equilibrium,  of  strong 
yet  shifting  emotions,  of  purposes  not  understood.  "Someone  has 
said  of  mental  adolescence  that  it  is  as  if  we  were  born  over  again,  not 
from  an  unremembered  past  into  which  the  new  life  can  bring  no  sur- 
prises, but  from  one  conscious  life  into  another  that  cannot  be  under- 
stood by  anything  in  our  previous  experience."  * 

In  the  first  years  of  the  period,  the  sex-repulsion  continues  which 
was  characteristic  of  later  childhood  ;  but  the  sexes  begin  to  be 
attracted  in  its  latter  half.  Boys  begin  to  pay  attention  to  their  dress, 
and  girls  are  no  longer  tom-boys.  Few  pass  the  age  of  sixteen  with- 
out some  little  love  affair. 

From  sixteen  to  eighteen  the  feelings  deepen  and  acquire  more  sta- 
bility. Emotions  become  sentiments  ;  the  affections  are  more  lasting. 
Life  is  getting  its  "set."  It  is  the  time  at  which  emotional  religious 
conversions  are  most  apt  to  occur. 

7.  Intellectually,  adolescence  is  marked  by  the  development  of 
the  higher  powers.  The  youth  is  able  to  reason,  not  simply  in  terms 
of  time  sequence,  but  of  cause  and  effect,  and  logical  ground  and  con- 
sequence. And  he  becomes  a  pretty  rigorous  logician.  He  wants  to 
understand.     He  seeks  life's  rational  basis. 

It  follows  that  the  adolescent  is  critical.  He  rejects  mere  author- 
ity. The  springs  of  moral  judgment  are  now  within  him  :  he  will 
accept  no  bald  imperatives.  He  is  no  longer  credulous  ;  he  demands 
proofs.  He  is  not  content  with  scattered  bits  of  knowledge  ;  he  wants 
to  see  things  in  their  relations. 

It  is  easy  to  see,  therefore,  why  doubt  should  often  be  thought  to  be 
a  characteristic  of  early  adolescence.  The  sort  of  doubt  that  denies, 
however,  is  not  natural  at  this  period.  It  comes  afterward,  in  later  ado- 
lescence. Now  there  is  simply  the  demand  for  reasons.  If  it  turns 
to  a  more  negative  attitude,  it  is  generally  because  we  have  not  met 
that  demand  the  right  way.  Clear,  logical  statement  of  beliefs  and 
reasons  will  be  accepted.  But  we  can  force  the  youth  to  doubt  if  we 
*  Coe  :  "The  Spiritual  l,ife,"  p.  33. 


52  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

press  authority  where  he  seeks  reason,  or  if,  in  matter  or  method,  our 
teaching  is  below  his  level. 

8.  Early  adolescence  is  a  time  of  more  or  less  turmoil  and  con- 
fusion. Coe  calls  it  a  period  of  "general  mental  fermentation,"  and 
speaks  of  its  "yeastiness  of  mind."  *  There  is  not  disorganization, 
so  much  as  lack  of  organization.  The  youth  does  not  understand  him- 
self ;  he  cannot  at  once  coordinate  the  many  new  impulses  that  are 
welling  up  within  him. 

Physically,  the  boy  or  girl  in  the  early  'teens  is  overgrown  and  awk- 
ward. The  parts  of  the  body  do  not  grow  at  the  same  rate,  and  there 
is  clumsiness  and  incoordination  of  movement.  The  boy's  voice 
breaks.  The  girl  feels  big  and  restless  and  is  afraid  to  talk.  Both  are 
very  sensitive,  and  are  too  often  made  more  so  by  the  talk  of  parents 
and  family,  who  speak  of  the  awkward  age,  comment  on  their  personal 
appearance,  or  tease  them  about  their  budding  consciousness  of  the 
other  sex. 

The  extremes  and  contradictions  of  adolescence  have  often  been 
noted.  The  boy  is  now  one  thing,  and  now  its  opposite.  He  sud- 
denly awakes  to  a  new  interest,  and  throws  himself  into  it  with  the 
utmost  ardor — for  a  few  weeks  ;  then  it  is  forgotten.  He  is  over-exact 
and  conscientious  in  some  respects,  and  careless  in  others.  It  is 
because  of  the  very  richness  of  his  new  life.  He  is  not  sure  of 
himself.  His  instincts  are  as  great  a  surprise  to  himself  as  to  anyone 
else. 

This  confusion  of  life  may  issue  in  an  abnormal  self-consciousness 
and  a  morbid  habit  of  introspection.  It  then  becomes  hard  to  deal 
with  because  the  adolescent  is  naturally  secretive,  and  resents  any 
intrusion  upon  his  personality.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  most 
of  the  studies  of  adolescence  have  not  tended  to  exaggerate  the  in- 
trospective character  of  the  period.  In  any  case,  the  cure  is  to  give 
the  youth  something  to  do  that  seems  to  him  worth  while,  and  to  see 
to  it  that  he  realizes  something  of  its  fruits. 

9.  Religious  awakenings  are  natural  in  early  adolescence.  In  the 
general  expansion  of  selfhood  the  religious  instinct  has  its  place.  As 
life  opens  to  a  larger  world,  and  becomes  cognizant  of  new  social  and 
spiritual  values,  the  soul  reaches  out  toward  God. 

As  we  should  expect,  the  first  definite  awakening  comes  at  the 
beginning  of  the  period.  At  twelve  or  thirteen  most  children  who 
have  been  brought  up  under  religious  influences  desire  to  join  the 
church.     "Among  512  officers  of  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations 

*  Coe  :  "  The  Spiritual  I^ife,"  pp.  38,  86. 


EARLY  ADOLESCENCE  53 

the  average  age  of  the  first  deep  religious  impression  appears  to 
have  been  13.7  years.  Among  99  men  who  were  studied  with  refer- 
ence to  all  their  periods  of  special  religious  interest,  as  many  awaken- 
ings of  the  religious  sense  occurred  at  twelve  and  thirteen  as  at 
sixteen  and  seventeen.  A  recent  study  shows  that  in  a  group  of 
'growth  cases'  reaching  into  the  hundreds,  the  most  distinctive 
period  of  spontaneous  interest  falls  at  the  age  of  twelve."  * 

There  is  a  second  period  of  religious  awakening  at  sixteen  and 
seventeen.  Forty-one  of  the  ninety-nine  men  studied  by  Coe  experi- 
enced an  increase  of  religious  interest  at  this  age — the  same  number 
as  at  the  earlier  period.  At  twenty  again,  there  seems  to  be  a  third 
such  awakening.  Seventy-six  per  cent  of  the  religious  awakenings  re- 
ported by  these  men  came  in  the  ages  from  twelve  to  twenty,  and  50  per 
cent  in  the  years  named  as  times  of  special  interest — twelve  and  thirteen, 
sixteen  and  seventeen,  and  twenty,  f  Other  studies  have  tended  to 
confirm  the  conclusions  which  Coe  draws  from  these  figures. 

When  we  inquire  into  the  age  of ' conversion^  the  question  is  different. 
We  are  asking  now  at  what  age  the  decision  is  most  apt  to  be  made. 
As  might  be  expected,  Coe  found  that  conversions  were  most  frequent 
in  the  three  periods  of  special  religious  awakening  ;  but  the  propor- 
tion is  not  the  same.  There  were  more  at  sixteen  and  seventeen  than 
in  the  earlier  period,  and  many  less  in  the  last  period  than  in  either  of 
the  other  two.  Collating  a  number  of  studies,  he  found  that  the 
average  age  of  conversion  for  1784  men  was  16.4  years.  Hall  adds 
data  from  several  sources  which  show  that,  of  a  total  of  4054  men,  1329 
were  converted  at  sixteen,  seventeen  and  eighteen,  and  3053  at  ages 
from  twelve  to  twenty,  with  only  705  at  twenty-one  and  over.f  Has- 
lett  summarizes  a  total  of  6641  conversions  of  both  sexes,  of  which 
5054  were  at  ages  from  twelve  to  twenty ;  1527  were  at  sixteen  and 
seventeen,  and  only  1039  from  twenty-one  to  thirty-four.  \ 

We  shall  later  inquire  more  closely  into  the  significance  of  these 
figures.  It  is  enough  now  that  we  see  the  tremendous  importance  of 
early  adolescence  in  religious  development  Both  at  its  beginning  and 
at  its  end  life  is  especially  open  to  religious  influences.  It  is  the  age 
upon  which  the  Sunday  school  must  center  its  efforts. 

10.  We  may  sum  up,  finally,  three  great  reasons  why  early  adoles- 
cence is  a  peculiarly  critical  period  : 

*  Coe  :  "  Education  in  Religion  and  Morals,"  pp.  254,  255. 

t  Coe  :  "  The  Spiritual  Iyife,"  ch.  i. 

X  Hall:  "  Adolescence,"  II.,  p.  290. 

§  Haslett:  "Pedagogical  Bible  School,"  p.  165. 


54  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

( i )  It  brings  a  multitude  of  new  instincts.  A  new  instinct  means  a 
new  interest,  a  new  opening  of  life.  It  means  an  unstable  equilibrium 
— a  new  danger  and  a  new  opportunity.  Character  is  never  more 
plastic  ;  habits  form  quickly. 

(2)  The  youth  thinks  himself  a  man,  but  is  not.  His  ideals  and 
ambitions  reach  out  into  the  great  world ;  yet  he  is  only  a  boy,  and 
hardly  more  than  a  child.  He  is  not  old  enough  to  decide  for  himself 
any  of  life's  greater  issues  ;  but  he  wants  to.  To  deal  rightly  with 
him  you  will  need  all  your  love  and  tact  and  hard  common  sense. 
You  must  bear  responsibility,  yet  let  him  feel  it.  You  must  take  him 
seriously,  and  not  let  him  know  your  doubts.  In  short,  you  must  think 
with  him,  not  simply/<?r  him,  and  so  lead  him  to  right  conclusions. 
You  must  share  his  life,  and  give  him  a  share  of  yours. 

(3)  The  youth  of  this  age  is  peculiarly  open  to  suggestion.  His 
suggestibility  is  in  fact  as  great  as  that  of  the  child  under  six — but  it  is 
of  a  different  sort.  Early  childhood  was  open  to  direct  suggestion ; 
it  would  believe  and  act  upon  whatever  is  told  it.  Now  the  suggestion 
must  be  indirect.  The  youth  will  resent  a  direct  command  or  wish  ; 
but  he  is  very  sensitive  to  influence.  The  reason  is  plain.  His  new 
consciousness  of  the  great  world  about  him  shapes  his  sense  of  values. 
He  will  esteem  those  things  that  he  finds  esteemed  in  what  he  gets  to 
know  of  the  grown-up  world  ;  he  will  reject  what  is  there  rejected. 
There  is  no  time  of  life  when  social  environment  is  so  potent.  The 
youth  is  bound  to  be  like  those  about  him — not  merely  because  he  im- 
itates, but  because  their  life  is  the  source  from  which  he  imbibes  his 
new  ideas  of  what  life  is.  To  help  him  you  must  suggest,  not  in  words 
but  in  deeds.  Don't  talk  ;  be  and  do.  Go  about  your  business,  live 
straight  and  get  things  accomplished,  and  your  influence  will  do  what 
advice  never  could.  Be  a  friend  of  the  boy,  not  a  patron.  Let  him 
work  with  you  ;  don't  make  him  feel  that  you  are  working  for  him. 

QUESTIONS 

1.  What  years  does  adolescence  cover?  Why  does  the  Sunday 
school  fix  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  period  where  it  does  ? 

2.  Describe  the  physical  growth  and  vigor  of  early  adolescence. 
How  do  girls  differ  from  boys  in  growth  and  development  during 
these  years  ? 

3.  How  does  the  independence  and  self-assertion  of  early  adoles- 
cence differ  from  that  of  later  childhood  ? 


EARLY  ADOLESCENCE  56 

4.  How  do  the  records  of  the  public  schools  prove  the  expansion 
of  selfhood  in  early  adolescence  ? 

5.  Show  how  the  social  instincts  mature  in  these  years.  How  do 
they  differ  from  those  of  later  childhood  ? 

6.  Why  does  the  development  of  the  sexual  instincts  throw  life 
into  unstable  equilibrium?  What  changes  of  attitude  toward  the  other 
sex  does  the  adolescent  pass  through  ? 

7.  In  what  sense  is  early  adolescence  a  time  of  doubt  ? 

8.  Why  is  the  youth  of  this  age  awkward  and  self-conscious  ? 

9.  What  are  the  three  periods  of  special  religious  awakening  found 
by  Coe  ? 

10.  At  what  time  of  life  do  the  greater  number  of  conversions  take 
place  ? 

11.  WThy  is  early  adolescence  a  peculiarly  critical  period? 

12.  Compare  the  suggestibility  of  youth  with  that  of  childhood. 


LESSON  VII 
Later  Adolescence 

We  have  agreed  to  regard  the  seventeenth  birthday  as  the  begin- 
ning, and  the  twenty-first  as  the  end  of  later  adolescence.  These 
boundaries  are  by  no  means  exact.  There  are  no  rules  by  which  the 
passage  from  early  to  later  adolescence  may  be  precisely  defined. 
Yet  in  every  life  there  is  a  more  or  less  definite  turning  point  around 
sixteen  to  eighteen.  It  may  be  some  moral  or  emotional  crisis  ;  it  may 
be  conversion.  Or  it  is  the  beginning  work  to  support  one's  self,  or 
leaving  home  to  go  to  college.  It  may  be  nothing  more  than  the 
attainment  of  full  growth  in  height.  To  know,  in  any  particular  case, 
just  what  the  turning  point  has  been,  is  essential  to  any  real  under- 
standing of  the  succeeding  years. 

We  have  seen,  too,  that  adolescence  ends  more  often  at  twenty-four 
or  twenty-five  than  at  twenty-one.  Yet  here  practical  considerations 
impel  the  Sunday  school  to  regard  the  age  of  legal  majority  as  the  end 
of  youth. 

i.  The  development  of  individuality  is  the  fundamental  charac- 
teristic of  this  period.  It  has  been  well  called  a  time  of  selection  and 
concentration.  Early  adolescence  was  a  time  of  expansion.  It  pre- 
sented a  wealth  of  possibilities.  It  spread  the  world  before  youth's 
eager  vision.  Its  instincts  pulled  a  hundred  ways.  Later  adolescence 
begins  to  select  from  among  life's  possibilities  and  to  concentrate  its 
energies.  Life  begins  to  narrow,  but  to  become  deeper.  The  time 
of  mere  vision  is  over  ;  choice  must  be  made.  And  With  choice  comes 
individuality.  Lives  diverge.  Each  must  have  its  own  work  ;  and 
each  its  own  quality 

2.  The  difference  between  individuals  is  thus  the  great  fact  of 
wrhich  we  must  take  account  in  this  period.  At  no  time,. of  course, 
are  pupils  to  be  treated  in  the  bunch.  The  individuality  of  the  tiniest 
and  most  uninteresting  must  be  respected.  But  now,  of  all  times, 
individual  interests  are  primary.  Each  pupil  presents  a  separate 
problem  in  himself. 

Many  factors  enter  into  the  determination  of  individuality.  There 
are  differences  of  heredity  and  of  home  environment.  There  is  the 
natural  inborn  variation  of  capacity  and  temperament.     God  makes 

(56) 


LATER  ADOLESCENCE  57 

no  one  of  His  creatures  or  of  His  children  exactly  like  any  other.  It  is 
the  provision  by  which  His  wisdom  insures  progress  in  the  world.  All 
these  differences  show  themselves  with  especial  dcfiniteness  in-  later 
adolescence.  And  they  do  so  because  they  are  called  out  by  differ- 
ences in  external  conditions.  We  do  not  all  have  the  same  oppor- 
tunities. We  cannot  all  get  the  same  education,  or  do  the  same 
work.  There  we  come  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter — it  is  because 
the  lives  of  your  pupils  are  now  getting  set  toward  work,  and  toward 
different  lines  of  work,  that  you  must  deal  with  each  in  its  own  way. 

Recent  studies  show  that  not  more  than  half  the  children  who  enter 
our  city  schools  finish  the  work  of  the  grades,  and  that  only  one-tenth 
of  them  continue  to  the  final  year  of  the  high  school.*  It  has  been 
estimated,  again,  that  only  ten  per  cent  of  those  who  take  a  high 
school  course  go  to  college  or  to  a  professional  school.  Consider 
what  differences,  simply  from  this  standpoint,  later  adolescence  pre- 
sents.    Our  pupils  divide  themselves  into  at  least  three  great  classes  : 

(i)  Those  who  have  gotten  only  an  elementary  education,  or  a  part 
of  one,  and  have  gone  to  work  at  an  early  age.  They  are  more 
mature  than  others  in  some  ways,  for  they  have  had  to  face  life's  seri- 
ous business.  In  other  respects  they  are  more  immature.  Their  lives 
are  circumscribed  ;  their  interests  narrow.  They  cannot  appreciate 
things  that  appeal  strongly  to  those  of  more  culture. 

(2)  Those  who  are  now  finishing  high  school,  and  entering  upon 
work-a-day  life. 

(3)  Those  who  are  entering  college  or  professional  school.  For  these 
the  period  of  adolescence  will  be  prolonged.  They  will  broaden  and 
mature  intellectually,  yet  lack  development  into  manhood  and  woman- 
hood until  they  finally  face  the  world  to  make  a  living. 

3.  All  three  classes  are  experiencing  in  this  period  a  contact  with 
reality  more  direct  and  definite  than  at  any  former  time  of  life.  The 
first  two  are  wage-earners  ;  the  former  with  a  little  experience,  the  lat- 
ter just  beginning.  They  face  the  realities  of  business  life,  with  its 
routine,  its  competition  and  its  uncompromising  standards  of  efficiency. 
The  college  students  are  leaving  home  for  the  first  time  to  enter  upon 
a  new  life.  Protected  from  economic  necessity  as  it  is,  college  life  yet 
has  its  realities.  It  is  a  world  to  itself,  but  within  it  the  student  stands 
upon  his  own  feet.  He  must  make  good  in  life  with  his  fellows  as 
well  as  in  the  eyes  of  the  faculty. 

We  shall  here  consider  later  adolescence  from  the  standpoint  simply 
of  the  first  two  classes.     Very  few  of  you  have  to  deal  with  college 

*  Ayres  :  "  I^aggards  in  Our  Schools,"  p.  65. 


58  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

students.  The  problems  of  the  student,  moreover,  are  peculiarly  his 
own,  and  must  be  solved  by  college  men. 

4.  For  most  of  our  pupils,  then,  later  adolescence  marks  a  new 
stage  in  life  because  it  brings  their  first  wages.  It  is  the  time  of 
transition  from  economic  dependence  to  self-support  and  inde- 
pendence. At  some  time  or  other  within  these  years,  life's  real  re- 
sponsibilities begin. 

Nature  has  made  ready  for  the  transition.  The  youth  of  this  age 
possesses  a  splendid  equipment  for  work — a  high  degree  of  physical 
energy,  strength  and  comparative  maturity  of  intellect  and  vigor  of 
will.  The  physical  energy,  that  before  was  needed  for  growth,  can  now 
be  turned  into  activity  and  the  development  of  strength.  This  is  the 
age  when  athletes  develop — great  baseball  and  football  players,  boxers 
and  runners.  They  reach  their  best  in  the  middle  twenties.  The 
baseball  player  of  thirty  is  a  "  veteran,"  and  we  wonder  whether  he 
can  stand  the  pace  for  another  season.  The  runner  has  usually  had  to 
stop  racing  before  that  age.  He  no  longer  possesses  the  endurance 
that  he  had  in  the  years  just  before  and  after  twenty-one. 

The  intellectual  energy  of  the  period  is  just  as  great.  Reason  and 
will  are  maturing,  and  the  mind  is  restlessly  active.  Much  of  the 
world's  best  work  has  been  done  by  young  men.  The  list  of  its  great 
youths  reaches  into  every  sphere.  Napoleon  was  a  lieutenant  at  fif- 
teen, and  by  study  made  himself  the  master  that  he  was  of  the  science 
of  war.  He  was  but  twenty-four  when  he  astonished  the  world  at  the 
siege  of  Toulon.  Lafayette  sailed  to  the  help  of  the  American  col- 
onies at  nineteen.  Byron  published  his  first  volume  at  seventeen  ; 
Bryant  wrote  ' '  Thanatopsis ' '  at  the  same  age.  Shelley  had  published 
romances  and  poems  before  he  was  eighteen,  and  at  that  age  was  ex- 
pelled from  Oxford  for  publishing  a  tract  on  "The  Necessity  of  Athe- 
ism." Pascal  discovered  geometry  for  himself  at  twelve,  and  at  six- 
teen wrote  a  treatise  on  conic  sections.  Savonarola  passed  his  later 
youth  in  meditation  upon  the  evils  of  his  day  ;  and  at  twenty-two  de- 
cided the  work  of  his  life.  At  seventeen  Leibniz  wrote  a  thesis  con- 
taining the  germ  of  his  philosophy,  and  at  twenty  was  ready  for  a 
doctorate  of  laws.  Descartes  doubted  all  knowledge  save  mathemat- 
ics while  yet  a  stripling,  and  at  twenty-three  passed  through  the  crisis 
which  determined  his  whole  future  life  and  philosophy.  At  nineteen 
Schelling  was  writing  upon  the  philosophy  of  Kant  and  Fichte,  at 
twenty-two  published  his  first  great  book,  and  at  twenty-three  was 
himself  professor  of  philosophy  at  Jena.  Michael  Angelo  was  at  work 
in  the  palace  of  the  Medici  at  sixteen.     Peter  Cooper  vowed  at 


LATER  ADOLESCENCE  59 

eighteen  that  he  would  some  day  build  a  Cooper  Institute.  At  the 
same  age  Spurgeon  began  his  remarkable  work  as  a  preacher. 

5.  Yet  later  adolescence  is  not  all  success  and  happiness.  It  con- 
tains its  disappointments.  It  has  new  forces  to  tear  life  down  as 
well  as  to  build  it  up. 

It  is  almost  inevitably  a  time  of  some  disillusionment.  The  hopes 
of  early  youth  were  too  extravagant,  its  ideals  loved  with  a  passion 
that  did  not  see  how  plodding  is  the  path  to  realization.  The  first 
contact  with  reality  brings  something  of  a  shock,  a  sense  of  loss.  The 
world  is  not  nearly  so  responsive  as  the  boy  had  dreamed,  and  ideals 
are  not  so  easy  of  accomplishment.  This  making  a  living  seems,  after 
all,  a  sordid  business,  which  knows  no  law  save  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  He  feels  himself  to  be  a  mere  cog  in  a  vast  industrial 
machinery,  and  the  dull  routine  of  it  all  oppresses  him. 

"  Forenoon,  and  afternoon,  and  night ; — forenoon. 
And  afternoon,  and  night ; — forenoon,  and — what? 
The  empty  song  repeats  itself.     No  more?  " 

Added  to  this  is  the  fact  that  starting  to  work  means  generally  a 
breaking  of  old  ties.  Even  if  the  boy  stays  at  home  and  boards  with 
his  parents,  the  home  ties  are  no  longer  the  same.  He  has  acquired 
a  new  jndependence  now  that  he,  too,  is  a  bread-winner.  The  old 
restraints  are  loosed  ;  his  status  even  in  the  home  comes  to  be  one  of 
contract.  The  break  is  most  complete,  of  course,  in  case  of  the  youth 
who  goes  to  a  new  community  to  make  his  living  among  strangers. 
The  freedom,  the  new  temptations,  the  loneliness  of  being  without 
friends  and  with  no  acquaintances  save  fellow-workmen — no  wonder 
that  the  boy  in  a  new  town  often  goes  wrong. 

Jane  Addams  has  given  us  an  interpretation  of  the  spirit  of  youth 
that  is  almost  prophetic  in  its  insight.  There  is  not  a  page  in  her  book 
that  one  can  afford  to  lose  ;  but  we  must  be  content  here  with  two 
brief  passages  : 

"  Many  boys  in  the  years  immediately  following  school  find 
no  restraint  either  in  tradition  or  character.  They  drop  learning 
as  a  childish  thing  and  look  upon  school  as  a  tiresome  task  that 
is  finished.  They  demand  pleasure  as  the  right  of  one  who 
earns  his  own  living.  They  have  developed  no  capacity  for  re- 
creation demanding  mental  effort  or  even  muscular  skill,  and 
are  obliged  to  seek  only  that  depending  upon  sight,  sound  and 
taste.  Many  of  them  begin  to  pay  board  to  their  mothers,  and 
make  the  best  bargain  they  can,  that  more  money  may  be  left 


60  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

to  spend  in  the  evening.  They  even  bait  the  excitement  of 
4  losing  a  job,'  and  often  provoke  a  foreman  if  only  to  see  '  how 
much  he  will  stand.'  They  are  constitutionally  unable  to  en- 
joy things  continuously  and  follow  their  vagrant  wills  unhin- 
dered. Unfortunately  the  city  lends  itself  to  this  distraction. 
At  the  best,  it  is  difficult  to  know  what  to  select  and  what  to 
eliminate  as  objects  of  attention  among  its  thronged  streets,  its 
glittering  shops,  its  gaudy  advertisements  of  shows  and  amuse- 
ments." 

' '  One  of  the  most  pathetic  sights  in  the  public  dance  halls  of 
Chicago  is  the  number  of  young  men,  obviously  honest  young 
fellows  from  the  country,  who  stand  about  vainly  hoping  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  some  '  nice  girl.'  They  look  eagerly 
up  and  down  the  rows  of  girls,  many  of  whom  are  drawn  to  the 
hall  by  the  same  keen  desire  for  pleasure  and  social  intercourse 
which  the  lonely  young  men  themselves  feel.  One  Sunday 
night  at  twelve  o'clock  I  had  occasion  to  go  into  a  large  public 
dance  hall.  As  I  was  standing  by  the  rail  looking  for  the  girl  I 
had  come  'to  find,  a  young  man  approached  me  and  quite 
simply  asked  me  to  introduce  him  to  some  'nice  girl,' saying 
that  he  did  not  know  anyone  there.  On  my  replying  that  a 
public  dance  hall  was  not  the  best  place  in  which  to  look  for  a 
nice  girl,  he  said,  '  But  I  don't  know  any  other  place  where 
there  is  a  chance  to  meet  any  kind  of  a  girl.  I'm  awfully  lone- 
some since  I  came  to  Chicago.'  And  then  he  added,  rather  de- 
fiantly, '  Some  nice  girls  do  come  here  !  It  is  one  of  the  best 
halls  in  town.'  He  was  voicing  the  '  bitter  loneliness '  that  many 
city  men  remember  to  have  experienced  during  the  first  years 
after  they  had  '  come  up  to  town.'  "* 

Later  adolescence  is  often  called  the  "  wild  oats'"  period.  It  is 
true,  indeed,  that  most  boys  now  have  their  fling.  It  is  true,  too,  that 
from  these  years  on  through  the  twenties  more  crimes  are  committed 
than  at  any  other  time  of  life.  But  the  wild  doings  of  youth  are  not 
usually  caused  by  purposed  badness  of  character.  They  are  often 
enough  a  natural  result  of  the  conditions  of  which  we  have  just  been 
thinking. 

6.  tIn  later  adolescence  religion  may  easily  be  lost,  either  through 
disuse  or  through  doubt. 

(i)  Religion  may  simply  die  out  of  the  youth"  s  life.  The  new  free- 
dom permits  him  to  stay  away  from  church,  and  it  gets  easy  to  stay 

*  Addains  :  "  The  Spirit  of  Youth  and  the  City  Streets,"  pp.  II,  54. 


LATER  ADOLESCENCE  61 

away.  Work  makes  him  forget  religion  ;  success  keeps  him  from 
feeling  its  need.  It  is  a  law  of  life  that  use  gives  strength  ;  a  capacity 
unused  weakens  and  dies.  It  is  as  true  of  the  religious  instinct  as  of 
any  other.  One  need  not  be  a  sinner  to  lose  God  ;  he  need  only 
forget  Him. 

(2)  This  is  life' s  doubting  time.  About  the  beginning  of  the 
twenties  many — perhaps  most — men  and  women  pass  through  a 
period  of  doubt  and  negation  respecting  the  truths  of  religion.  There 
are  many  causes.  The  disillusionment  of  these  years  often  brings  a 
sense  of  the  worthlessness  of  religious  hopes.  The  college  student's 
first  vision  of  the  great  truths  of  science  calls  in  question  the  religious 
conceptions  he  had  before  acquired — and  all  too  often  rightly,  because 
his  teachers  have  forced  upon  him  dogmas  that  he  could  not  under- 
stand, and  with  the  best  of  intentions  have  led  him  to  believe  impos- 
sible things.  The  youth,  too,  who  gets  no  higher  education  catches 
the  spirit  of  the  popular  science  of  newspapers  and  magazines,  with  a 
more  disastrous  result  because  it  is  poor  science  on  the  one  hand,  and 
he  is  less  able  to  understand  on  the  other.  Perhaps  he  is  caught  by 
the  argument  of  the  labor  agitator  or  socialist  leader,  who  inveighs 
against  religion  because  the  church  is  itself  a  "club  of  the  rich." 
Aside  from  all  these  external  incentives,  however,  the  youth  is  im- 
pelled to  doubt  from  within.  His  metaphysical  [instincts  have  awak- 
ened. His  reason  is  active.  He  must  know  what  he  believes,  and  he 
must  systematize  his  principles  of  life.  He  seeks  a  unity  of  concep- 
tion. He  is  a  creed-maker.  And  just  because  his  old  religious  ideas 
were  the  ideas  of  a  child,  they  will  not  fall  into  unity  and  harmony  with 
one  another  or  with  the  new  conceptions  which  every  day  brings.  He 
can  no  longer  be  content  with  the  old  answer  that  these  are  mysteries. 
Youth  acknowledges  no  mysteries.    He  turns  to  doubt. 

7.  But  later  adolescence  has  its  reconstructive  forces.  Great  as 
are  the  chances  for  disintegration  in  these  years,  life  builds  itself  anew. 
We  note  three  such  forces  : 

(1)  Education.  Doubt  can  be  met  and  resolved  by  more  complete 
knowledge.  Youth  is  open-minded.  Take  your  young  doubter  at 
his  word,  and  meet  his  intellectual  difficulty  with  an  intellectual 
answer,  and  you  need  have  no  fear.  He  is  no  skeptic.  He  seeks  the 
truth,  and  he  will  accept  it  when  it  comes.  Make  sure  that  you  know 
enough  to  teach  him  ;  make  sure  that  you  have  the  truth. 

The  routine  dullness  of  labor,  too,  may  be  banished  if  the  youth  but 
learns  more  of  his  task  and  its  bearings  upon  human  life.  Disillusion- 
ment may  become  warm-hearted  comprehension  as  one  gets  to  know, 


62  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

and  his  interests  widen.  We  have  often  wrongly  defined  culture.  It 
does  not  mean  mere  acquaintance  with  books  and  paintings,  or  the 
ability  to  talk  of  historical  events.  It  means  breadth  of  interest — the 
ability  to  understand  what  the  next  man  is  doing,  and  to  see  the  vital 
relations  which  his  life  sustains  to  mine,  and  mine  to  his. 

"  If  a  child  goes  into  a  sewing  factory  with  a  knowledge  of 
the  work  she  is  doing  in  relation  to  the  finished  product  ;  if  she 
is  informed  concerning  the  material  she  is  manipulating  and  the 
processes  to  which  it  is  subjected  ;  if  she  understands  the  de- 
sign she  is  elaborating  in  its  historic  relation  to  art  and  decora- 
tion, her  daily  life  is  lifted  from  drudgery  to  one  of  self-con- 
scious activity,  and  her  pleasure  and  intelligence  is  registered 
in  her  product.  .  .  .  Education  must  be  planned  so  seriously 
and  definitely  for  the  years  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  that  it 
will  be  actual  trade  training  so  far  as  it  goes,  with  attention 
given  to  the  conditions  under  which  money  will  be  actu- 
ally paid  [for  industrial  skill ;  but  at  the  same  time,  that  the 
implications,  the  connections,  the  relations  to  the  industrial 
world,  will  be  made  clear.  A  man  who  makes,  year  after  year, 
but  one  small  wheel  in  a  modern  watch  factory,  may,  if  his  edu- 
cation has  properly  prepared  him,  have  a  fuller  life  than  did  the 
old  watchmaker  who  made  a  watch  from  beginning  to  end.  .  .  . 
When  all  the  young  people  working  in  factories  shall  come  to  use 
their  faculties  intelligently,  and  as  a  matter  of  course  be  inter- 
ested in  what  they  do,  then  our  manufactured  products  may  at 
last  meet  the  demands  of  a  cultivated  nation,  because  they  will 
be  produced  by  cultivated  workmen.  The  machine  will  not  be 
abandoned  by  any  means,  but  will  be  subordinated  to  the  intel- 
ligence of  the  man  who  manipulates  it,  and  will  be  used  as  a 
tool."* 

For  this  education,  too,  the  youth  is  ready  who  has  experienced 
anything  of  the  disappointment  it  is  meant  to  heal.  The  large  num- 
ber of  young  men  who  are  in  the  night  schools  of  great  cities,  or  who 
are  taking  correspondence  courses,  bears  witness  to  this  fact.  The 
time  is  fast  coming  when  our  public  schools  will  meet  more  adequately 
than  they  have  ever  done  the  needs  of  that  great  industrial  population 
which  constitutes  the  body  of  society. 

(2)  Love  between  the  sexes.  In  the  closing  years  of  this  period  and 
in  the  early  twenties  "the  greatest  thing  in  the  world"  is  likely  to 

*  Addams  :  "The  Spirit  of  Youth  and  the  City  Streets,"  pp.  122-128. 


LATER  ADOLESCENCE  63 

come  into  life.  It  is  true  that  the  sex-instincts  are  susceptible  of  grave 
abuse,  and  that  passion  may  lead  to  the  worst  of  sins.  Yet  life  has  no 
greater  spiritual  force  than  love  for  one  of  the  opposite  sex.  It  lifts 
the  self  above  all  that  is  carnal  and  gross.  It  makes  selfishness  im- 
possible. It  gains  life  through  losing  life.  It  brings  new  strength  to 
resist  temptation,  and  puts  a  new  joy  into  work.  The  instinct  to  make 
a  home  and  to  live  for  one's  children  is  sacred.  It  is  God's  revelation 
of  His  own  nature  within  us.  Too  early  marriages,  of  course,  are  un- 
fortunate ;  and  the  conditions  of  modern  life  compel  the  young  man  of 
to-day  to  wait  longer  than  his  father  did.  Yet  he  is  blessed  who  falls 
really  in  love  with  the  right  girl.  His  time  of  waiting  and  working  will 
be  one  of  spiritual  uplift. 

(3)  Altruism  and  social  service.  The  older  adolescent  is  as  ready 
as  was  the  younger  to  sacrifice  self  for  sake  of  others — but  now  he 
is  more  practical  about  it.  Altruism  is  no  longer  a  vague  ideal ;  he 
seeks  definite  forms  of  social  service  and  wants  to  see  results.  Not 
unselfishness  in  general,  but  a  particular  bit  of  unselfishness  that 
counts  for  something,  will  enlist  his  sympathy  and  co-operation.  The 
great  trouble  with  many  classes  and  clubs  and  other  organizations  for 
youths  who  are  almost  men  is  that  they  seem  to  have  nothing  real  to 
do.  Give  the  youth  responsibility  ;  couple  him  up  to  the  real  work 
of  social  betterment ;  make  him  feel  that  he  is  a  worker  along  with 
you  toward  the  same  ends,  instead  of  being  himself  the  object  of  your 
endeavor — and  you  need  not  work  to  make  a  man  of  him.  He  will 
make  a  man  of  himself. 

8.  Finally,  we  dare  not  forget  that  the  close  of  later  adolescence 
marks  "the  danger  line  in  religion."  We  remember  from  the 
figures  quoted  in  the  last  chapter  that  there  is  a  time  of  special 
religious  interest  at  twenty,  and  a  relatively  large  number  of  conver- 
sions. But  less  than  one-sixth  of  the  conversions  studied  took  place 
after  twenty.  One-half  of  these,  again,  were  before  twenty-five.  The 
chances  are  a  thousand  to  one  against  conversion  after  thirty.  Our 
duty  is  obvious.  Preachers  have  appealed  for  repentance  on  the 
ground  that  we  know  not  what  hour  we  shall  die.  Stronger  far  is  the 
appeal  of  the  facts  respecting  the  age  of  conversion.  Now  is  the 
time,  not  because  of  what  we  do  not  know  about  death,  but  because 
of  what  we  do  know  about  life.  Every  day's  postponement  makes  it 
the  more  certain  that  our  pupil  never  will  consecrate  his  life  to  God. 


64  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

QUESTIONS 

i.  What  are  some  of  the  factors  which  contribute  to  the  develop- 
ment of  individuality  in  later  adolescence  ? 

2.  Into  what  three  great  classes  do  differences  of  education  divide 
our  pupils  in  later  adolescence  ? 

3.  In  what  sense  does  later  adolescence  bring  a  new  and  direct 
contact  with  reality  ? 

4.  Tell  something  of  the  physical  and  intellectual  energy  of  later 
adolescence. 

5.  Discuss  some  of  the  forces  which  tend  to  tear  life  down  in  this 
period. 

6.  Why  is  later  adolescence  a  time  when  religion  may  easily  be 
lost? 

7.  Why  is  later  adolescence  a  time  of  doubt?    How  does  its  doubt 
differ  from  that  of  early  adolescence  ? 

8.  Show  how  education  may  serve  as  a  reconstructive  force  in  a 
life  that  has  been  attacked  by  doubt,  disillusionment  or  temptation. 

9.  Discuss  the  spiritual  value  of  love  between  the  sexes. 

10.  How  does  the  altruism  of  later  adolescence  differ  from  that  of 
early  adolescence  ? 

11.  Why  does  the  close  of  later  adolescence  mark  the  danger  line 
in  religion  ? 


LESSON  VIII 
Instinct 

We  have  thought  now  of  the  chief  characteristics  of  each  stage  in  the 
development  of  a  child,  We  have  learned  something  of  how  person- 
ality grows.  It  would  be  well  if  we  could  take  up  the  other  problem 
of  how  the  mind  works.  We  should  think  then  of  those  great  prin- 
ciples of  mental  life  which  hold  true  in  every  stage  of  its  development. 
But  there  will  not  be  time  to  do  that  in  any  systematic  way. 

We  shall  spend  three  lessons,  however,  in  a  closer  study  of  the  laws 
that  determine  action.  We  have  spoken  a  good  deal  of  instinct, 
habit  and  will ;  and  it  is  highly  important  that  we  understand  clearly 
just  what  we  mean  by  these  terms.  At  the  same  time  these  three  les- 
sons may  serve  to  recall  and  summarize  many  of  the  things  we  have 
learned  thus  far. 

One  thing  must  be  said  at  the  outset.  When  we  distinguish  instinct, 
habit  and  will  as  determining  action,  we  do  not  mean  to  classify 
actions  into  mutually  exclusive  groups.  In  most  of  our  behavior, 
the  three  are  together  present  as  determining  factors.  Any  ordinary 
action  is  partly  instinctive,  partly  voluntary,  and  partly  habitual.  In- 
stinct determines  our  general  tendencies  or  attitudes  in  presence  of  a 
situation,  and  so  lays  down  certain  broad  limits  within  which  action 
will  lie.  The  will  determines  its  specific  character  and  purpose. 
Habit,  finally,  takes  care  of  the  details  of  its  execution.  Take  as  an 
example  your  conversation  and  behavior  in  any  social  group.  Instinct 
determines  the  general  attitudes  you  take  toward  others — whether  shy 
or  eager  to  entertain,  ready  or  slow  of  speech,  vivacious  or  phleg- 
matic. Your  ideas  determine  what  you  want  to  say  and  do.  Habit 
forms  your  words  with  lips  and  tongue,  maintains  your  posture  and 
makes  your  gestures.* 

i.  Instincts  are  natural  tendencies  to  act  in  certain  ways  which  re- 
sult from  the  inborn  organization  of  the  nervous  system.  This  organ- 
ization is  a  matter,  partly  of  inheritance  from  the  race  as  a  whole,  partly 

*  One  other  thing  should  be  said  at  the  outset.  These  chapters  aim  to  do  nothing 
more  than  present  briefly  the  substance  of  Professor  James'  doctrine  on  their 
topics.  He  has  made  these  subjects  peculiarly  his  own,  by  his  fresh  insight  and 
wonderfully  clear  and  attractive  treatment.  The  teacher  should  read  his  "  Talks 
to  Teachers  on  Psychology." 

5  (65) 


66  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

of  inheritance  from  our  immediate  ancestors,  and  partly  of  the  origi- 
nal variations  which  constitute  our  individual  endowment.  In  any 
case,  an  action  is  instinctive  just  in  so  far  as  one  does  not  need  to  learn 
it,  or  to  acquire  the  tendency  to  do  it. 

2.  One  cannot  give  a  complete  list  of  the  human  instincts,  for  it 
is  often  hard  to  draw  the  line  between  what  is  instinctive  and  what  has 
been  learned.  Such  a  list  would  cover  a  wide  variety  of  actions,  from 
the  simple  reflexes  of  early  infancy  to  the  sacrifices  of  a  mother's  love. 
Professor  James'  list  may  be  taken  as  typical : 

"Among  the  first  reflex  movements  are  crying  on  contact 
with  the  air,  sneezing,  snuffling,  snoring,  coughing,  sighing,  sob- 
bing, gagging,  vomiting,  hiccuping,  starting,  moving  the  limbs 
when  touched,  and  sucking.  To  these  now  may  be  added  hang- 
ing by  the  hands.  Later  on  come  biting,  clasping  objects  and 
carrying  them  to  the  mouth,  sitting  up,  standing,  creeping  and 
walking.  It  is  probable  that  the  nerve  centers  for  executing 
these  three  latter  acts  ripen  spontaneously,  just  as  those  for 
flight  have  been  proved  to  do  in  birds,  and  that  the  appearance 
of  learning  to  stand  and  walk,  by  trial  and  failure,  is  due  to  the 
exercise  beginning  in  most  children  before  the  centers  are  ripe. 
.  .  .  With  the  first  impulses  to  imitation,  those  to  significant 
vocalization  are  born.  Emulation  rapidly  ensues,  with  pug- 
nacity in  its  train.  Fear  of  definite  objects  comes  in  early, 
sympathy  much  later,  though  on  the  instinct  of  sympathy  so 
much  in  human  life  depends.  Shyness  and  sociability,  play, 
curiosity,  acquisitiveness,  all  begin  very  early  in  life.  The  hunt- 
ing instinct,  modesty,  love,  the  parental  instinct,  etc.,  come 
later.  By  the  age  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  the  whole  array  of  human 
instincts  is  complete.  It  will  be  observed  that  no  other  mammal, 
not  even  the  monkey,  shows  so  large  a  list. ' '  * 

3.  There  have  been  many  attempts  to  classify  the  human  instincts, 
with  no  result  that  is  entirely  satisfactory.  Kirkpatrick's  classification 
is,  perhaps,  the  best  for  our  purpose. f  He  takes  the  uses  which  in- 
stincts serve  as  the  basis  of  division,  and  finds  five  great  classes,  to 
which  he  adds  a  miscellaneous  group. 

(1)  The  individualistic  instincts  are  those  which  serve  to  maintain 
the  life  of  the  individual.  They  are  the  instincts  of  self-preservation. 
Feeding,  fear,  fighting  and  anger  belong  to  this  class. 

*  "  Psychology,"  Briefer  Course,  pp.  406,  407. 
t  "  Fundamentals  of  Child-Study,"  pp.  S1^- 


INSTINCT  67 

(2)  The  parental  instincts  are  those  associated  with  reproduction 
and  care  for  the  young.  Love  between  the  sexes  and  the  love  of 
parent  for  child  are  the  principal  instincts  of  this  class.  These  instincts 
do  not  appear  as  a  rule  until  adolescence  ;  yet  we  may,  perhaps,  in- 
clude with  them  the  instinct  of  children  to  care  for  pets,  dolls  and 
children  younger  than  themselves.  It  should  be  noted,  too,  that  the 
parental  care-taking  instinct  in  adults  is  not  restricted  to  those  who 
are  themselves  parents.  The  successful  teacher  has  a  good  share 
of  it. 

(3)  The  social  instincts  are  those  concerned  with  relations  to  other 
persons.  This  class  includes  sociability,  shyness,  sympathy,  affec- 
tion, altruism,  modesty,  secretiveness,  love  of  approbation,  rivalry, 
jealousy,  envy. 

(4)  The  adaptive  instincts  are  those  which  bring  the  child  into  closer 
contact  with  his  environment,  and  enable  him  to  adapt  himself  to  his 
surroundings.  In  this  class  are  three  great  instincts  which  are,  per- 
haps, the  most  important  of  all  in  relation  to  the  work  of  the  teacher. 
They  are  imitation,  play  and  curiosity. 

(5)  The  regulative  instincts  are  those  concerned  with  the  formation 
of  ideals  and  the  regulation  of  life  in  light  of  them.  They  are  the 
instincts  of  morality  and  religion. 

(6)  In  a  miscellaneous  group  may  be  placed  the  instinct  to  collect 
things  and  enjoy  ownership,  the  instinct  to  construct  or  destroy,  the 
instinct  to  express  ideas  to  others,  the  instinct  to  love  and  enjoy  beau- 
tiful things. 

4.  We  all  know  enough  of  the  instinctive  activities  enumerated  in 
these  lists  to  make  plain  certain  general  characteristics  of  human 
instincts : 

(1)  The  instincts  are  indefinite.  They  do  not  provide  for  any 
such  details  of  action  as  do  the  instincts  of  lower  animals.  Instinct 
leads  the  bee  to  build  the  honeycomb,  and  dictates  even  the  hexagonal 
pattern  of  its  cell ;  it  impels  the  child  to  construct,  but  what  and  how 
it  does  not  determine.  Our  instincts  do  not  so  much  provide  par- 
ticular things  to  do,  as  simply  general  kinds  of  action.  The  details 
are  left  to  be  learned  through  experience.  Often  enough  they  provide 
simply  the  innate  capacity  for  some  line  of  action  or  of  study.  Many 
of  them,  as  fear,  anger,  jealousy,  are  emotions  as  well,  and  so  stand 
rather  for  active  attitudes  than  for  specific  acts. 

(2)  The  instincts  are  not  all  present  at  birth ;  but  they  appear,  each 
in  its  time,  as  a  result  of  the  natural  growth  of  the  nervous  system. 
The  question  as  to  just  when  each  instinct  appears,  and  what  are  the 


68  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

dominant  instincts  at  each  stage  in  the  growth  of  a  child,  we  have 
dealt  with  briefly  in  preceding  chapters. 

(3)  When  instincts  do  appear,  they  are  often  gradual  in  their  de- 
velopment. A  child  does  not  begin  to  act  all  at  once  in  a  totally  new 
way,  because  a  new  instinct  has  grown  within  him.  The  instinct  itself 
must  come  to  maturity — in  some  cases  very  rapidly,  in  others  more 
slowly.  Instincts  really  ripen;  they  are  the  result  of  the  gradual 
maturing  of  the  nerve  centers  which  are  responsible  for  them. 

(4)  The  ripening  of  an  instinct  means  the  development  of  a  new 
aptitude  and  the  awakening  of  a  new  interest.  The  child  reaches  out 
eagerly  toward  anything  that  may  serve  as  material  for  the  nature- 
impelled  activity  within  him. 

(5)  Instincts  are  transitory  and  modifiable.  If  they  are  not  used, 
or  if  their  use  leads  to  disagreeable  results,  they  will  die  out.  When 
they  are  used,  they  become  set  in  the  definite  directions  which  that 
use  has  taken,  and  so  become  habits. 

5.  The  bearing  of  these  characteristics  of  instinct  upon  the 
work  of  the  teacher  has  been  set  forth  by  Professor  James  in  a  pas- 
sage so  striking  that  we  must  quote  it  at  length  : 

' '  We  see  the  law  of  transiency  corroborated  on  the  widest  scale 
by  the  alternation  of  different  interests  and  passions  as  human 
life  goes  on.  Writh  the  child,  life  is  all  play  and  fairy-tales  and 
learning  the  external  properties  of  things  ;  with  the  youth,  it  is 
bodily  exercises  of  the  more  systematic  sort,  novels  of  the  real 
world,  boon  fellowship  and  song,  friendship  and  love,  nature, 
travel  and  adventure,  science  and  philosophy  ;  with  the  man, 
ambition  and  policy,  acquisitiveness,  responsibility  to  others, 
and  the  selfish  zest  of  the  battle  of  life.  If  a  boy  grows  up 
alone  at  the  age  of  games  and  sports,  and  learns  neither  to  play 
ball,  nor  row,  nor  sail,  nor  ride,  nor  skate,  nor  fish,  nor  shoot, 
probably  he  will  be  sedentary  to  the  end  of  his  days  ;  and, 
though  the  best  of  opportunities  be  afforded  him  for  learning 
these  things  later,  it  is  a  hundred  to  one  but  he  will  pass  them 
by  and  shrink  back  from  the  effort  of  taking  those  necessary 
first  steps,  the  prospect  of  which,  at  an  earlier  age,  would  have 
filled  him  with  eager  delight.  ...  In  all  pedagogy  the  great 
thing  is  to  strike  the  iron  while  hot,  and  to  seize  the  wave  of 
the  pupil's  interest  in  each  successive  subject  before  its  ebb 
has  come,  so  that  knowledge  may  be  got  and  a  habit  of  skill 
acquired — a  headway  of  interest,  in  short,  secured,  on  which 


INSTINCT  69 

afterward  the  individual  may  float.  There  is  a  happy  moment 
for  fixing  skill  in  drawing,  for  making  boys  collectors  in 
natural  history,  and  presently  dissectors  and  botanists  ;  then  for 
initiating  them  into  the  harmonies  of  mechanics  and  the  wonders 
of  physical  and  chemical  law.  Later,  introspective  psychology 
and  the  metaphysical  and  religious  mysteries  take  their  turn  ; 
and,  last  of  all,  the  drama  of  human  affairs  and  worldly  wisdom 
in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term.  In  each  of  us  a  saturation 
point  is  soon  reached  in  all  these  things  ;  the  impetus  of  our 
purely  intellectual  zeal  expires,  and  unless  the  topic  be  one 
associated  with  some  urgent  personal  need  that  keeps  our  wits 
constantly  whetted  about  it,  we  settle  into  an  equilibrium,  and 
live  on  what  we  learned  when  our  interest  was  fresh  and  in- 
stinctive, without  adding  to  the  store.  Outside  of  their  own 
business,  the  ideas  gained  by  men  before  they  are  twenty-five 
are  practically  the  only  ideas  they  shall  have  in  their  lives. 
They  cannot  get  anything  new.  Disinterested  curiosity  is  past, 
the  mental  grooves  and  channels  set,  the  power  of  assimila- 
tion gone.  .  .  .  To  detect  the  moment  of  the  instinctive  readi- 
ness for  the  subject  is,  then,  the  first  duty  of  every  educator."* 

6.  If  the  detection  of  the  pupil's  instincts  and  interests  be  the  first 
duty  of  every  teacher,  his  second  duty,  no  less  important,  is  the  con- 
trol of  instincts.  And  the  vital  problem  is — How  ?  .What  method 
is  best  to  repress  undesirable  instincts  and  to  enforce  and  train  those 
that  are  desirable  ? 

No  instinct,  once  used,  is  after  that  merely  an  instinct.  It  has  added 
two  things  to  itself — a  habit  and  an  idea.  Just  because  it  has  once 
expressed  itself  in  a  certain  definite  way,  it  will  tend  thereafter  to  ex- 
press itself  in  the  same  way,  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  habit.  And 
because  its  expression  has  led  to  some  result  of  which  one  is  con- 
scious, the  idea  of  that  result  remains  in  memory  and  may  help  to 
determine  future  action.  The  hereditary  tendency  need  no  longer  be 
followed  blindly.  Each  time  that  an  instinct  is  used  in  action,  there- 
fore, it  becomes  more  definite  and  more  intelligent. 

Instincts  may  be  controlled,  then,  in  three  ways.  First,  through 
not  using  them  at  all,  in  which  case  they  in  time  simply  die  out. 
Second,  through  so  using  the  law  of  habit  as  to  get  them  definitely 
fixed  in  right  directions.  Third,  through  so  comprehending  their 
results  that  one's  ideas  will   help  them  lead  to  efficient  and  right 

*  James  :  "  Psychology,"  Briefer  Course,  pp.  402-405. 


70  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

action.     Control  by  ideas  we  shall  deal  with  when  we  come  to  discuss 
the  will  ;  let  us  think  now  of  control  through  disuse  and  habit. 

Disuse  of  an  instinct  can  be  secured  by  seeing  that  the  situations 
which  would  naturally  call  it  forth  are  not  experienced,  and  that  the 
materials  it  needs  to  express  itself  are  not  present.  Do  not  give  the 
destructive  child  intricate  toys  whose  mechanism  is  a  challenge.  In- 
stincts that  are  disused  in  time  are  gone.  The  nerve  pathways  have 
wasted  away,  as  does  any  part  of  the  body  which  is  not  exercised. 

Punishment  is  an  application  of  the  law  of  habit  as  well  as  of  control 
by  ideas.  When  a  painful  or  disagreeable  result  has  been  connected 
with  an  instinctive  action,  a  tendency  not  to  employ  it  is  set  up. 

Substitution  is,  however,  the  only  sure  way  to  deal  with  an  unde- 
sirable instinct.  Substitute  another  action  for  the  one  you  wish  to  get 
rid  of,  and  exercise  that  other  as  much  as  you  can.  It  combines  with 
disuse  of  the  wrong  instinct  a  positive  fixing  of  the  right  one  by  means 
of  the  law  of  habit.  Set  your  destructive  child  to  work  constructing 
useful  things,  and  you  can  swing  the  whole  force  of  his  instinct  into 
channels  that  are  worth  while.  Let  your  boys  work  off  their  pugnac- 
ity in  athletic  games  which  will  instill  ideas  of  loyalty  and  of  team- 
play  along  with  the  right  sort  of  rivalry.  Instead  of  seeking  to  re- 
press the  "gang,"  enlist  it  in  a  club  and  give  it  something  to  do. 
The  best  juvenile  court  in  the  world  is  at  Denver,  because  Judge 
Lindsey  knows,  how  to  appeal  to  that  boyish  honor  which  is  a  part  of 
the  spirit  of  the  gang.  Real  control  is  never  merely  negative.  It  is 
idle  simply  to  stop  an  action  or  to  seek  to  eradicate  an  instinct.  Some 
other  action  must  take  the  place  of  the  one  prevented.  The  child 
must  do  something ;  and  if  there  be  at  hand  nothing  else  to  do,  he 
will  follow  the  old  instinct,  even  though  he  feel  that  it  will  end  in  pun- 
ishment. Your  training  must  be  positive,  always  giving  the  some- 
thing else  to  do,  centering  his  attention  on  what  is  wanted  instead  of 
on  what  is  forbidden,  and  providing  the  situations  that  will  call  forth 
right  instincts.  One  can  sometimes  substitute  in  this  way  ahead  of 
time.  Before  an  undesirable  instinct  appears,  you  can  begin  to  form 
the  habit  of  meeting  in  a  better  way  the  situation  which  would  be 
liable  to  call  it  forth. 

To  enforce  and  make  permanent  a  good  instinct,  it  is  plain  that  we 
need  simply  make  of  it  a  habit.  Exercise  the  good  instinct,  and  make 
sure  that  it  brings  each  time  good  and  pleasurable  results  ;  and  it  will 
acquire  strength  and  definiteness. 

We  must  be  sure,  however,  that  we  understand  when  instincts  are 
good  and  when  they  are  bad.     No  instinct  is  bad  in  itself ;  it  is  bad 


INSTINCT  71 

only  in  some  particular  application,  or  when  so  enlarged  as  to  distort 
the  well-rounded  development  of  a  personality.*  Acquisitiveness  is  in 
itself  necessary  and  good  ;  it  becomes  bad  if  applied  to  the  property 
of  someone  else  in  theft,  or  if  it  so  enlarges  its  hold  upon  a  man  as  to 
make  him  what  we  call  ' '  grasping  "or  a  miser.  Further,  we  must 
not  judge  the  instincts  of  a  child  to  be  bad  because  they  interfere  with 
our  enjoyment,  or  are  not  fitting  from  our  point  of  view.  The  inces- 
sant activity  of  early  childhood  and  its  insatiable  curiosity  are  often 
very  annoying,  but  they  are  essential  to  the  child's  development. 

QUESTIONS 

i.  Show  how  instinct,  habit  and  will  cooperate   in  most  of  our 
actions. 

2.  What  do  you  understand  by  instinct? 

3.  Name  some  of  the  more  important  human  instincts. 

4.  Give  Kirkpatrick's  classification  of  the  human  instincts. 

5.  What  is  meant  by  the  statement  that  human  instincts  are  indefi- 
nite? 

6.  Are  all  instincts  present  at  birth  ?    When  does  the  .instinct  to 
creep  appear  ?    To  walk  ?    Fear  of  the  dark  ?    Social  instincts  ? 

7.  Give  instances  of  the  gradual  development  of  instincts. 

8.  What  is  meant  by  the  statement  that  instincts  are  transitory  and 
modifiable  ? 

9.  Discuss  the  bearing  of  the  doctrine  of  instinct  upon  the  work  of 
the  teacher. 

10.  "  Every  time  that  an  instinct  is  used  in  action,  it  becomes  more 
definite  and  more  intelligent ' ' — why  ? 

11.  Describe  the  methods  by  which  instincts  may  be  controlled. 

12.  What  is  the  difference  between  negative  and  positive  methods 
of  training?    Which  is  the  better,  and  why? 


LESSON  IX 
Habit 

We  hear  habit  so  much  discussed  from  the  moral  point  of  view  that 
we  are  apt  to  associate  the  term  with  moral  habits  only.  But  morality 
is  only  one  of  the  aspects  from  which  the  law  of  habit  may  be  regarded. 
It  is  in  reality  the  widest  and  most  fundamental  of  all  the  laws  of 
mental  life.  It  underlies  everything  that  the  mind  does.  Without  it, 
there  would  be  no  acquiring  of  tendencies,  abilities  or  information. 
Perception,  memory  and  reasoning  depend  on  the  law  of  habit  just  as 
truly  as  do  acts  of  will. 

i.  The  physical  basis  of  habit  is  found  in  the  fact  that  nerve  cells, 
like  all  other  living  tissue,  are  modified  through  use.  A  nerve  cell 
that  has  once  acted  is  so  changed  that  it  is  easier  for  it  to  act  again  in 
the  same  way.  A  connection  that  has  once  been  made  by  the  trans- 
mission of  a  nerve  impulse  from  one  cell  to  another,  is  likely  to  be 
made  again,  and  then  again,  until  a  very  definite  pathway  has  been 
established. 

2.  Since  it  is  so  wide  in  its  application,  the  law  of  habit  must  be 
formulated  in  very  general  terms.  It  may  be  stated  thus  :  Any  con- 
nection, nervous  or  mental,  which  has  been  made,  tends  to  recur.  The 
degree  of  probability  of  its  recurrence  depends  o?i  its  frequency,  recency 
and  intensity  in  past  experience. 

(i)  Note,  in  the  first  place,  that  this  law  applies  to  any  connection, 
nervous  or  mental.  It  may  be  the  connection  between  an  impression 
and  a  movement.  We  unconsciously  take  out  our  keys  as  we  approach 
the  home  doorstep ;  the  skilled  pianist,  without  thinking,  strikes  the 
right  key  for  each  note  on  the  score  before  her;  the  bicyclist  "in- 
stinctively" balances  himself  by  a  compensating  movement  as  he 
feels  his  body  incline  to  one  side  or  the  other.  These  are  not  inborn 
connections  of  impression  and  movement;  we  misuse  the  term  "in- 
stinctive" when  we  apply  it  to  any  such  actions.  They  were  at  first 
matters  of  conscious  experience,  or  even  of  painstaking  effort.  But 
through  repetition  a  pathway  of  connection  has  been  established  be- 
tween sensory  and  motor  nerve  cells,  such  that  consciousness  has  now 
little  or  nothing  to  do  in  determining  the  action.  Such  a  habit  is  an 
acquired  reflex. 

(72) 


HABIT  73 

But  this  is  only  one  of  the  many  types  of  connection  which  are  in- 
cluded under  our  law.  There  is  the  connection  between  an  impression 
and  an  idea  or  a  feeling.  How  many  of  us  have  found  that  in  certain 
situations  we  are  bound  each  time  to  think  of  the  same  things  or  to 
experience  the  same  feelings  ?  There  is  the  connection,  again,  between 
one  idea  and  another,  such  that  the  first  habitually  calls  to  mind  its 
fellow,  even  though  they  may  have  but  little  logical  relation.  Like 
habitual  connections  become  established  between  ideas  and  feelings, 
between  ideas  and  actions,  or  feelings  and  actions.  The  law  applies 
even  to  the  connection  between  actions  and  other  actions.  Simple 
practice  is  enough  to  make  habitual  and  efficient  a  coordination  of 
muscles  which  was  at  first  difficult  and  poorly  accomplished.  Learning 
to  write,  to  ride  a  bicycle,  to  play  basketball  or  tennis,  are  examples. 

We  need  not  study  in  detail  any  of  these  types  of  habitual  connec- 
tion. The  main  point  is  to  see  how  general  and  universal  in  applica- 
tion the  law  of  habit  is.  Any  connection,  nervous  or  mental — between 
impressions,  ideas,  thoughts,  memories,  feelings,  movements — once 
made,  tends  to  recur.  And  in  all  these  cases  the  established  habit 
tends  more  and  more  to  drop  below  the  level  of  consciousness  and  to 
become  a  matter  of  mechanical  nerve-action.  This  is  simply  nature's 
general  provision  of  economy  and  growth  in  mental  life.  As  fast  as 
the  mind  masters  a  situation,  it  hands  it  over  to  the  mechanical  care 
of  habit.  The  mind  is  thus  left  free  for  new  and  important  things ; 
familiar  situations  and  details,  through  our  established  habits,  take 
care  of  themselves. 

(2)  The  second  part  of  the  law  asserts  that  the  strength  of  an 
habitual  connection,  and  consequent  probability  of  its  recurrence,  de- 
pend on  three  factors.  These  factors,  which  may  be  called  the  vari- 
ables of  the  lazv  of  habit,  are  the  frequency,  recency  and  intensity  of  the 
connection  in  past  experience. 

Freque7icy.  The  more  often  a  connection  is  repeated,  the  stronger 
it  becomes.  Speaking  figuratively,  the  pathway  over  which  the  nerve- 
current  goes  becomes  more  deeply  worn.  Every  time  you  think  or 
act,  you  fix  more  definitely  your  habits  of  thinking  or  acting. 

Recency.  Other  things  being  equal,  that  connection  will  recur 
which  has  been  most  recently  made.  I  heard  just  now  the  bell  of  a 
locomotive,  and  there  flashed  into  mind  the  thought  of  last  Monday's 
journey.  It  has  not  been  a  very  frequent  one  ;  but  it  was  the  most 
recent  connection  with  a  locomotive  that  had  place  in  my  store  of  ex- 
periences. The  pathways  tend  to  become  obliterated  in  time  unless 
they  are  freshly  traversed  now  and  then. 


74  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

Intensity.  A  connection  that  has  been  made  with  force  or  intensity 
will  be  more  likely  to  recur  than  one  lacking  in  original  strength. 
When  two  things  have  been  connected  in  experience  under  stress  of 
some  emotion,  or  with  the  strain  of  effort  to  overcome  obstacles,  or 
in  the  full  glare  of  voluntary  attention,  their  connection  is  more  likely 
to  persist.  This  factor  of  intensity  covers  a  wide  range  of  experiences, 
from  a  child's  aversion  to  some  dainty  that  has  made  it  sick  to  the 
awful  distinctness  with  which  some  scene  of  sudden  disaster  is  burned 
into  the  mind.  A  pathway  stamped  hard  and  deep,  if  only  once,  is 
apt  to  remain. 

3.  The  illustrations  just  used  make  it  plain  that  the  applications  of 
the  law  of  habit  may  be  roughly  divided  into  two  groups.  Sometimes 
it  deals  primarily  with  ideas,  and  sometimes  with  actions.  We  can 
form  habits  of  thinking  and  habits  of  acting.  In  its  application  to 
thinking,  the  law  of  habit  lies  at  the  foundation  of  what  is  called  the 
association  of  ideas. 

We  have  all  had  the  experience  of  tracing  out  the  links  of  associa- 
tion which  called  some  idea  to  mind.  You  have  found  yourself  think- 
ing of  some  person  or  event,  humming  some  tune,  or  repeating  some 
snatch  of  poetry  ;  and  you  have  said  to  yourself,  ' '  Now,  what  made 
me  think  of  that?'''  And  setting  yourself  to  work  to  recall  the 
course  of  your  reverie,  you  have  been  able  to  see  how  one  thing 
led  to  another,  till  finally  there  was  called  up  the  thought  which  sur- 
prised you. 

The  general  principle  of  association  may  be  formulated  in  two 
propositions.  First,  no  idea  comes  up  for  use  by  the  mind  without 
being  called  up  by  some  sensation  or  other  idea.  Second,  no  sensa- 
tion or  idea  leaves  the  mind  without  trying,  at  least,  to  call  up  some 
idea  from  past  experience. 

This  general  principle,  however,  raises  the  question  :  What  particu- 
lar idea  will  a  given  sensation  or  idea  call  up  ?  It  will  call  up  some- 
thing either  that  has  actually  been  connected  with  itself  in  past 
experience,  or  that  is  similar  to  itself,  whether  before  connected  or 
not.  There  are  therefore  two  types  of  association.  Association  by 
contiguity  takes  place  when  an  idea  comes  to  mind  because  of  its  past 
connection  with  another,  as  when,  thinking  of  a  certain  man,  I  am  re- 
minded of  Mackinac  Island,  where  I  met  him.  Association  by  similar- 
ity takes  place  when  an  idea  comes  to  mind  because  of  some  point  of 
likeness  between  it  and  another,  as  when  a  total  stranger  reminds  me 
of  some  friend. 

It  is  evident  that  association  by  contiguity  is  simply  one  aspect  of  the 


HABIT  75 

working  of  the  law  of  habit.  The  thought  of  worship  calls  up  my 
home  church  rather  than  any  other  because  of  the  factor  of  frequency. 
Speak  of  music,  and  I  will  think  of  the  last  oratorio  in  which  I  sang. 
The  sound  of  the  fire  bell  always  brings  to  mind  the  night  when  a  whole 
city  block  burned  around  our  home,  because  of  the  intensity  with 
which  that  experience  impressed  itself  upon  my  childish  mind. 

Association  by  similarity  seems  different.  One  idea  may  call  up 
another  that  has  not  previously  been  connected  with  it,  provided  the 
second  is  like  it  in  some  point.  The  simplicity  and  earnestness  of  the 
Christian  life  reminded  Paul  of  the  athletic  games  at  Corinth — "I 
therefore  so  run,  not  as  uncertainly  ;  so  fight  I,  not  as  one  that  beateth 
the  air."  Yet  this  type  of  association,  too,  is  dependent  upon  the  law 
of  habit.  It  involves  two  factors  :  first,  that  some  single  characteristic 
of  the  first  thing  thought  of  stands  out  and  catches  the  attention  ; 
second,  that  this  single  characteristic  calls  up  something  with  which  it 
has  been  connected  in  the  past.  The  second  of  these  factors,  it  is  evi- 
dent, is  nothing  more  than  association  by  contiguity.  Even  in  our 
most  novel  and  original  associations,  therefore,  we  are  dependent 
upon  the  resources  which  experience  has  put  at  our  command.  If  a 
man  had  never  seen  athletic  games,  simplicity  and  earnestness  might 
stand  out  as  fundamental  characteristics  of  Christianity  with  all  the 
clearness  that  they  did  for  Paul,  yet  he  would  not  be  reminded  of  such 
a  contest. 

So  we  see  why  the  law  of  habit  may  well  be  regarded  as  the  widest 
and  most  fundamental  of  all  laws  of  the  mind.  Since  it  has  so  large  a 
part  in  determining  what  ideas  shall  come  before  the  mind,  it  under- 
lies everything  that  is  done  by  intellect  and  will.  We  all  know  that 
one's  past  experience  determines  his  ways  of  looking  at  things,  of 
thinking  and  acting.  In  perception,  in  memory,  in  reasoning  and  in 
willing,  we  are  dependent  upon  the  laws  of  association. 

4.  The  law  of  habit  thus  determines  our  actions  indirectly,  by  first 
determining  what  ideas  will  present  themselves  to  the  will.  But  it 
also  may  determine  actions  directly  and  mechanically,  without  the 
intervention  of  ideas.  When  we  think  of  this  aspect  of  its  work,  a 
fourth  variable  may  be  added — that  of  result.  An  action  that  has  re- 
sulted successfully  or  pleasurably  tends  to  recur  ;  one  that  has  resulted 
badly  or  disagreeably  tends  not  to  be  done  again.  The  chick  that  has 
pecked  at  some  distasteful  morsel  will  soon,  by  the  mere  working  of 
habit,  leave  it  alone.  The  burnt  child  fears  the  fire,  even  if  it  may 
not  call  up  any  definite  ideas  concerning  the  past  unpleasant  experi- 
ence. 


r6  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  characteristics  of  an  action  that  has 
become  a  habit,  as  contrasted  with  one  that  is  determined  by  ideas. 
The  habitual  action  is  performed  with  more  speed  and  accuracy  and 
with  less  fatigue.  It  is  done  without  conscious  attention,  and  the 
mind  is  left  free  to  concern  itself  with  other  things  while  the  action 
goes  on.  As  I  write  just  now,  my  mind  is  busy  with  the  ideas  I  wish 
to  express,  while  the  work  of  writing,  with  all  the  intricate  coordina- 
tion of  muscles  it  involves,  is  taken  care  of  mechanically  by  my  nerv- 
ous system.  I  do  not  pay  the  slightest  conscious  attention  to  the 
problem  of  how  to  form  the  letters  or  how  to  make  my  fingers  work 
together.  I  simply  have  my  thought  and  will  to  write  it — then  habit 
does  the  rest.     Habit  is  the  executive  of  my  ideas. 

5.  It  is  hard  to  overestimate  the  importance  and  value  of  the  law 
of  habit.  It  is  true  that  comparatively  few  of  our  actions  are  merely 
mechanical — matters  of  unconscious  habit  and  nothing  more.  Most 
actions  are  in  some  degree  controlled  by  ideas.  But  the  mechanical 
factor  is  always  there.  In  every  action  that  is  determined  by  ideas 
habit  has  at  least  two  functions  :  first,  as  law  of  association  it  brings 
the  ideas  themselves  before  the  mind  ;  and  second,  as  executive  it 
carries  out  the  details  of  action  once  the  ideas  have  decided  what  to 
do.  It  is  evident  that  many  an  action  is  pretty  completely  caused  by 
habit,  even  when  the  doer  thinks  that  he  has  consciously  chosen  it  in 
perfect  freedom.  The  drunkard  never  thinks  that  he  is  in  the  grip  of 
an  all-powerful  habit.  He  imagines  each  time  that  he  is  freely  choosing 
to  drink,  and  that  he  can  stop  whenever  he  pleases  ;  yet  his  action  is 
as  absolutely  determined  by  habit  as  that  of  the  man  who  goes  by 
daylight  into  his  bedroom  and  switches  on  the  electric  light  as  he 
enters  the  door. 

The  practical  conclusion  is  obvious.  The  problem  we  all  face  is 
that  of  using-  the  law  of  habit  so  that  it  will  help  instead  of  hinder  the 
right  moral  and  intellectual  growth.     As  Professor  James  puts  it : 

"The  great  thing  in  all  education  is  to  make  our  nervous  sys- 
tem our  ally  instead  of  our  enemy.  It  is  to  fund  and  capitalize 
our  acquisitions,  and  live  at  ease  upon  the  interest  of  the  fund. 
For  this  we  must  make  automatic  and  habitual,  as  early  as  pos- 
sible, as  many  useful  actions  as  we  can,  and  guard  against  the 
growing  into  ways  that  are  likely  to  be  disadvantageous  to  us, 
as  we  should  guard  against  the  plague." 

Note  the  insistence,  "as  early  as  possible."  The  reasons  are  plain. 
If  we  do  not  begin  right  habits  early,  we  shall  all  the  time  be  growing 


HABIT  77 

into  wrong  ones,  which  we  shall  afterwards  have  to  undo  before  we 
can  establish  the  better.  Further,  life  does  not  always  remain  plastic. 
Our  ways  get  more  and  more  fixed  as  we  grow  older,  and  it  is  hard 
for  the  mature  man  to  acquire  new  habits.  You  remember  James' 
statement,  quoted  in  the  last  chapter,  that  before  we  are  twenty-five 
we  acquire  most  of  the  ideas  we  shall  ever  have,  except  those  directly 
concerned  with  our  business  and  the  ordinary  events  of  life.  He 
maintains  that  we  acquire  the  larger  part  of  our  personal  habits  before 
twenty,  and  that  the  character  of  most  men  is  pretty  well  set  by  the 
age  of  thirty. 

Above  all,  we  need  to  remember  that  within  the  limits  of  our  plas- 
ticity, the  law  of  habit  is  always  sure  to  act.  It  does  not  concern 
itself  primarily  with  great  moral  issues,  but  with  the  ordinary  things 
which'  we  are  apt  to  deem  trivial.  And  it  has  no  exceptions.  There 
is  only  one  safe  rule  to  follow  :  Refrain  entirely  from  actions  you  do 
not  wish  to  become  habitual.  Keep  absolutely  apart,  both  in  mind  and 
in  life,  the  things  you  want  kept  apart.  There  is  no  moment  of  life 
too  valueless,  no  action  or  attitude  or  thought  too  insignificant,  for 
habit  to  take  account  of  and  fasten  upon  us.  James  puts  this  with  a 
vividness  that  is  startling  : 

"Could  the  young  but  realize  how  soon  they  will  become 
mere  walking  bundles  of  habits,  they  would  give  more  heed  to 
their  conduct  while  in  the  plastic  state.  We  are  spinning  our 
own  fates,  good  or  evil,  and  never  to  be  undone.  Every  small- 
est stroke  of  virtue  or  of  vice  leaves  its  never  so  little  scar. 
The  drunken  Rip  Van  Winkle,  in  Jefferson's  play,  excuses  him- 
self for  every  fresh  dereliction  by  saying,  '  I  won't  count  this 
time  ! '  Well !  he  may  not  count  it,  and  a  kind  heaven  may  not 
count  it ;  but  it  is  being  counted  none  the  less.  Down  among 
his  nerve  cells  and  fibers  the  molecules  are  counting  it,  register- 
ing and  storing  it  up  to  be  used  against  him  when  the  next 
temptation  comes.  Nothing  we  ever  do  is,  in  strict  scientific 
literalness,  wiped  out." 

6.  How  shall  we  make  sure  that  we  are  securely  establishing  the 
good  habit  we  desire,  or  making  permanent  the  association  needed  ? 
There  is  only  one  way  to  gain  a  new  habit,  or  to  break  up  an  old  one 
— that  is  to  keep  steadily  working-  at  it.  Habits  are  not  built  out  of 
resolutions  or  high  emotions  or  inspiring  visions,  but  out  of  repeated 
actions.  Just  keep  on  doing  the  right  thing,  and  you  will  wake  some 
morning  to  find  that  you  have  permanent  possession  of  it. 


r8  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  vSERIES 

The  same  principle  applies  to  the  making  of  associations.  All  edu- 
cation is  at  bottom  a  matter  of  getting  habits  of  thought.  A  fact  is 
learned  just  in  so  far  as  associations  are  established  which  will  insure 
its  permanent  possession,  and  its  availability  when  needed.  In  making 
such  associations,  the  factor  of  frequency  exhorts  to  repetition,  recency 
to  review,  while  intensity  insists  that  the  association  must  be  clear  and 
distinct,  in  the  full  light  of  attention. 

The  need  of  attention  to  insure  strength  of  connection  requires 
special  emphasis.  Because  we  have  said  that  habits  may  be  incident- 
ally acquired,  and  that  the  law  is  always  sure  to  act,  the  conclusion 
does  not  follow  that  we  may  rely  upon  incidental  and  careless  repeti- 
tion for  the  establishment  of  a  desired  habit  or  association.  Just  as 
the  utmost  care  must  be  used  to  keep  undesirable  connections  out  of 
life,  the  most  strenuous  energy  must  be  put  forth  to  get  those  that  are 
good.  The  only  safe  rule  here  is  :  Put  all  the  strength  you  can  into 
the  act  that  is  to  become  a  habit.  Center  your  whole  mind  upon  the 
fact  you  wish  to  remember. 

Professor  James,  thinking  of  actions  rather  than  of  associations, 
gives  this  and  three  other  concrete  maxims  which  constitute  the  best 
practical  summary  of  the  whole  matter  : 

"  (i)  Launch  yourself  with  as  strong  and  decided  an  initiative 
as  possible.  Accumulate  all  the  possible  circumstances  which 
shall  reinforce  the  right  motives  ;  put  yourself  assiduously  in 
conditions  that  encourage  the  new  way  ;  make  engagements 
incompatible  with  the  old  ;  take  a  public  pledge,  if  the  case 
allows ;  in  short,  envelop  your  resolution  with  every  aid  you 
know. 

"  (2)  Never  suffer  an  exception  to  occur  till  the  new  habit  is 
securely  rooted  in  your  life.  Each  lapse  is  like  the  letting 
fall  of  a  ball  of  string  which  one  is  carefully  winding  up  ;  a 
single  slip  undoes  more  than  a  great  many  turns  will  wind 
again. 

"  (3)  Seize  the  very  first  opportunity  to  act  on  every  reso- 
lution you  make,  and  on  every  emotional  prompting  you 
may  experience  in  the  direction  of  the  habits  you  aspire  to 
gain. 

"  (4)  Keep  the  faculty  of  effort  alive  in  you  by  a  little  gratui- 
tous exercise  every  day.  That  is,  be  systematically  ascetic  or 
heroic  in  little  unnecessary  points,  do  every  day  or  two  some- 
thing for  no  other  reason  than  that  you  would  rather  not  do  it, 


HABIT  79 

so  that  when  the  hour  of  dire  need  draws  nigh,  it  may  not  find 
you  unnerved  and  untrained  to  stand  the  test."  * 

QUESTIONS 
i.  What  is  the  physical  basis  of  habit? 

2.  State  the  law  of  habit. 

3.  Explain  the  variables  of  the  law  of  habit 

4.  State  the  general  principle  of  the  association  of  ideas. 

5.  What  is  association  by  contiguity?  Show  how  the  variables 
of  the  law  of  habit  apply  to  such  associations. 

6.  What  is  association  by  similarity  ?  Give  an  illustration  of  your 
own.  Show  how  association  by  similarity  is  dependent  upon  associa- 
tion by  contiguity. 

7.  "  Habit  underlies  everything  that  is  done  by  intellect  and  will  " 
— show  why  this  is  true. 

8.  What  fourth  variable  may  be  added  to  the  law  of  habit  when 
it  deals  directly  with  actions  ? 

9.  Is  an  action  that  is  willed  determined  in  any  degree  by  habit  ? 
Give  reasons  for  your  answer. 

10.  How  can  we  make  sure  that  we  do  not  fall  into  bad  habits  or 
acquire  undesirable  associations  ? 

11.  How  can  we  make  sure  of  acquiring  good  habits  and  desirable 
associations  ? 

12.  Gives  James'  rules  for  acquiring  a  new  habit  or  breaking  up  an 
old  one. 

*  The  quotations  in  this  chapter  are  all  from  James'  "  Psychology,"  Briefer 
Course,  pp.  142-150.  The  chapter  on  Habit  should  be  read  by  every  teacher.  It  is 
one  of  the  best  sermons  ever  written. 


LESSON  X 
The  Will 

People  often  speak  of  the  will  as  though  it  were  a  sort  of  absolute 
ruler,  independent  of  the  rest  of  the  mind,  and  master  of  all  its  ideas 
and  feelings  and  actions.  The  truth  is  that  the  will  is  itself  a  part 
of  the  mind,  and  must  develop  as  must  any  other  of  its  faculties.  One's 
will  depends  on  his  ideas  and  feelings,  instincts  and  habits,  just  as 
truly  as  they  in  turn  are  controlled  by  it. 

i.  To  understand  the  will,  we  must  begin  with  the  fundamental 
principle  that  "all  consciousness  is  motor."*  Every  idea  is  as  well 
an  impulse  to  act.  Thoughts  are  forces.  Left  to  itself,  any  thought 
will  issue  in  action. 

(i)  This  is  a  natural  consequence  of  the  structure  of  the  nervous 
system.  We  have  learned  how  its  cells  are  so  coupled  up  that  ' '  action 
of  some  sort  is  the  natural  outcome  of  every  nerve  current,  and  hence 
of  every  sensation  and  idea. ' '  f  We  called  this  the  law  of  motor  dis- 
charge. 

( 2 )  Many  experiments  have  proved  that,  even  though  we  check  the 
impulse  and  prevent  the  action,  we  cannot  entirely  stop  the  motor 
discharge.  Our  sensations  and  ideas  reflect  themselves  constantly  in 
little  starts  of  the  muscles,  in  changes  of  heart-beat,  breathing, 
secretion,  digestion,  and  the  like.  Everyone  has  felt  chagrined  at 
some  time  or  other  because  of  a  blush  that  would  come  when  he  did 
not  wish  it. 

(3)  A  hypnotized  subject  is  extremely  suggestible.  He  proceeds 
to  act  upon  any  idea  that  is  put  into  his  mind  by  the  person  who  hyp- 
notized him.  It  is  because  the  hypnotic  sleep  has  emptied  his  mind 
of  ideas,  and  the  one  suggested  takes  complete  possession  of  it.  If 
one  be  told  while  awake  that  he  is  an  animal,  a  host  of  conflicting 
ideas  and  sensations  present  themselves  to  disprove  the  suggestion ; 
but  if  while  hypnotized,  these  critical  ideas  do  not  come  to  mind,  the 
suggested  idea  is  left  alone,  and  it  issues  in  action. 

(4)  In  normal  wide-awake  life  we  often  act  impulsively.  See  a  maga- 
zine that  looks  interesting,  and  you  take  out  your  purse  and  buy  it. 
Think  of  golf,  and  you  start  for  the  links.     Some  judgment  comes  to 

*  James  :  "  Psychology,"  Briefer  Course,  p.  370.  fSee  p.  19. 

(80) 


THE  WILL  81 

mind,  and  it  is  no  sooner  thought  than  spoken.  Note  the  condition, 
however — if  left  to  itself  an  idea  issues  in  action.  If  conflicting  ideas 
present  themselves,  you  will  not  do  the  impulsive  thing.  You  will 
not  buy  the  magazine  if  the  thought  comes  that  there  are  other  things 
more  worth  reading  ;  you  will  not  play  golf  if  you  remember  that  you 
have  an  engagement ;  you  will  not  express  your  judgment  if  it  occurs 
to  you  that  it  might  hurt  someone.  • 

2.  The  distinction  between  impulsive  and  voluntary  action 
thus  becomes  plain.  An  action  is  impulsive  that  results  from  the  simple 
presence  and  impulse  of  one  idea.  When  you  "speak  before  you 
think,"  it  is  not  that  you  did  not  think  the  judgment  you  blurt 
forth,  but  that  you  did  not  think  of  anything  else  but  it.  In  Bible 
history  King  Saul  is  a  notable  example  of  an  impulsive  man.  His 
mistakes  and  sins  were  the  result,  not  so  much  of  settled  badness  of 
character  as  of  a  disposition  to  think  of  only  one  thing  at  a  time. 
An  action  is  voluntary,  on  the  other  hand,  when  more  than  one  idea 
has  been  present,  offering  an  alternative,  and  it  is  therefore  the  result 
of  choice. 

3.  Ideas  differ  greatly,  of  course,  in  the  degree  of  impulsive 
strength  which  they  possess.  Some  ideas  are  relatively  weak  in  their 
push  toward  action,  and  others  so  urgent  that  they  are  hard  to  resist. 
The  rule  is  that  the  impulsive  strength  of  an  idea  depends  upon  its 
relation  to  instincts  and  habits,  and  upon  the  immediacy  of  the  satis- 
faction it  promises.  The  strongest  of  all  impulses  are  associated  with 
those  objects  which  appeal  directly  to  elemental  instincts — the  bodily 
appetites,  the  passions  and  emotions.  Ideas  that  are  in  line  with 
acquired  habits  may  have  as  great  a  force,  though  we  seldom  feel  it 
quite  as  intensely.  Things  near  at  hand,  immediate  results  and 
present  goods,  have  an  impulsive  attraction  which  diminishes  rapidly 
with  their  removal  in  space  or  postponement  in  time.  It  is  much 
easier  to  let  each  moment  take  care  of  itself  than  to  act  for  sake  of 
some  end  to  be  realized  in  the  distant  future — the  here  and  now  seems 
so  much  more  real,  and  immediate  satisfactions  more  tangible.  In  any 
normal  man,  therefore,  distinctly  rational  ideas  of  action — those  de- 
rived from  far-sighted  consideration — are  relatively  cold  and  weak  in 
impulsive  power.  Such  ideas  it  requires  an  effort  to  hold  before  the 
mind,  in  face  of  the  overwhelming  surge  of  stronger  impulses. 

4.  An  act  of  will  involves  three  things  ;  first,  the  presence  before 
the  mind  of  alternative  lines  of  action';  second,  the  acceptance  of  some 
one  as  our  choice  ;  third,  the  resulting  action. 

The  first  factor  of   an    act  of   will — the  presence  of  alternatives — 
6 


82  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

depends  upon  the  working  of  the  laws  of  association.  You  cannot 
will  to  do  a  thing  unless  you  first  think  of  it ;  and  you  cannot  think  of 
it  unless  it  is  called  up  by  the  laws  of  association  which  determine  the 
appearance  of  ideas  before  your  mind.  How  many  times  we  have 
acted  miserably  in  some  situation  and  afterward  were  sorry  for  what 
we  had  done — yet  we  did  the  best  we  knew  at  the  moment  !  YVe 
w^uld  have  chosen  the  better  thing  had  we  thought  of  it ;  the  trouble 
was  that  it  did  not  come  to  mind  at  all. 

The  second  factor  in  willing — the  power  to  choose  some  one  of  the 
alternative  ideas — depends  on  the  power  to  keep  that  idea  before  the 
focus  of  attention.  The  secret  of  will  is,  after  all,  concentrated  atten- 
tion. Just  in  the  degree  that  one  can  keep  thinking  of  the  right  thing 
and  keep  other  ideas  from  taking  possession  of  the  mind,  he  is  certain 
always  to  choose  the  right  thing.  The  idea  that  is  consistently  kept 
before  the  mind  is  pretty  sure  to  issue  in  action,  simply  because  of  its 
own  impulsive  power. 

And  this  makes  plain  the  third  factor  of  willing.  The  action  is  not 
something  that  we  add  to  ideas  ;  it  is  not  some  power  that  we  create 
to  help  them  out.  It  is  the  physical  result  that  naturally  follows  when 
an  idea  is  kept  steadily  before  the  mind — provided,  of  course,  one  has 
the  ability  to  carry  it  out. 

5.  The  will  is  dependent  upon  the  laws  of  association.  We 
cannot  will  to  do  anything  of  which  we  have  not  had  some  previous 
experience.  The  ideas  which  shape  the  will  come  from  former 
actions  and  "their  results — actions  which  we  either  have  done  our- 
selves or  have  observed  in  others.  One  has  a  good  and  efficient 
will  in  the  degree  that  he  can  do  just  the  right  thing  at  each  particular 
time  and  place  ;  and  his  ability  to  do  the  right  thing  depends  upon 
his  ability  to  think  of  it.  What  brilliant  conversationalists  we  should 
all  be  if  we  had  such  command  of  the  stories  and  epigrams  we 
have  heard  that  we  could  think  each  moment  of  the  one  that  is  most 
apt !  And  how  sensibly  we  should  act  if  we  could  think  in  every 
situation  of  that  item  of  our  general  body  of  knowledge  which  bears 
most  vitally  upon  it ! 

So,  after  all,  one 's  associations  measure  the  degree  of  freedom  which 
his  will  possesses.  The  man  who  chooses  from  a  wide  range  of  alter- 
natives is  more  free  than  he  who  can  think  of  only  a  few  possible  things  to 
say  or  do.  To  develop  a  strong  and  efficient  will,  one  must  begin  at  the 
foundation  by  widening  the  range  of  his  ideas,  and  by  making  such  asso- 
ciations as  shall  insure  that  they  will  be  at  hand  when  he  needs  them. 

There  is  another  side,  of  course.      The  will  itself  helps  to  determine 


THE  WILL  83 

what  ideas  shall  come  before  the  mind.  When  we  thought  of  the  laws 
of  association  in  the  last  chapter  we  left  out  one  factor.  In  case  both 
of  contiguity  and  similarity,  of  the  many  possible  ideas  which  might 
come  up,  that  is  most  likely  to  come  which  is  most  in  accord  with  the 
general  trend  or  purpose  of  thought  for  the  time.  Under  stress  of  a 
great  grief,  everything  reminds  one  of  his  loss ;  the  happy  man  never 
thinks  of  misfortune.  At  work  on  your  Bible  lesson,  the  name  Paul 
makes  you  think  of  the  apostle  ;  in  conversation  with  your  family,  it 
reminds  you  of  your  neighbor  boy.  One  set  of  ideas  comes  to  mind 
on  Sunday,  another  set  at  business  during  the  week.  A  purpose, 
therefore,  if  one  is  really  in  earnest  about  it,  will  keep  bringing  before 
the  mind  such  ideas  as  are  consistent  with  itself.  But,  remember,  a 
purpose  cannot  create  ideas.  The  will  can  only  select  the  best  of  the 
resources  which  experience  has  put  at  its  command. 

6.  The  idea  which  holds  the  attention  is  the  idea  which  will 
result  in  action.  Attention  may  be  either  spontaneous  or  voluntary. 
Spontaneously,  we  give  attention  to  ideas  which  appeal  to  our  inter- 
ests, our  instincts,  habits  or  feelings.  Voluntarily,  we  keep  the  at- 
tention upon  some  idea  because  of  its  relation  to  some  other  idea  or 
purpose.  In  general,  ideas  which  appeal  spontaneously  have  a  strong 
impulsive  power,  while  those  which  appeal  more  intellectually  are 
relatively  weak. 

Undoubtedly  a  great  part  of  our  willing  results  from  attention  which 
makes  its  choice  more  or  less  spontaneously — and  it  is  well  that  it  is 
so.  But  we  all  know,  as  a  matter  of  experience,  that  one  can  pull 
himself  together  and  keep  his  attention  unflinchingly  centered  on  the 
right  thought,  to  the  exclusion  of  any  number  of  more  strongly  impul- 
sive ideas  that  seek  to  crowd  it  out.  It  demands  effort,  it  costs  sacri- 
fice, it  often  means  a  tremendous  battle  ;  but  it  can  be  done.  Here, 
then,  is  the  very  wellspring  of  freedom  within  a  man.  The  things  to 
which  he  gives  attention  are  not  decided  for  him  ;  they  are  not  even 
the  mechanical  results  of  his  own  instincts  and  habits.  He  may  some 
day  summon  an  energy  of  which  he  himself  had  never  dreamed,  and 
center  his  life  about  a  new  object. 

He  may  ;  but  he  most  likely  will  not.  This  freedom  does  not  lessen 
in  the  least  the  force  of  habit  and  association  in  molding  a  life.  The 
greatest  fool  on  earth  is  he  who  lets  bad  habits  and  associations  enter 
into  the  very  building  of  his  soul,  relying  upon  his  "freedom  of  will  " 
to  purge  him  of  them  some  day,  and  to  create  his  life  anew. 

One  condition  must  be  fulfilled  if  effort  is  in  any  case  to  be  put 
forth.     To  command  it,  an  object  must  seem  worth  while.     //  must 


84  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  VSERIES 

bring  results,  or  give  very  definite  promise  of  them.  Attention  can- 
not be  kept  long,  even  through  effort,  upon  an  unchanging  and  fruit- 
less object.  If  you  begin  to  act,  and  results  come,  it  becomes  easy. 
If  they  do  not  come  immediately,  the  object  must  be  kept  alive  by 
thought  about  it,  picturing  in  anticipation  its  many  desirable  conse- 
quences. The  man  who  can  think  most  fruitfully  about  some  pur- 
pose, and  who  can  most  vividly  imagine  its  concrete  results,  will  be 
best  able  to  command  the  effort  needed  to  hold  it  before  the  mind. 
For  another,  the  same  idea  may  simply  die  out,  for  the  very  barren- 
ness of  his  thought  about  it.  Great  reformers  and  discoverers  are 
always  intensely  imaginative  men. 

The  weak-willed  man,  on  the  other  hand,  is  such  because  he  is 
unable  to  keep  his  thought  consistently  upon  the  right  idea.  Professor 
James  gives  so  concrete  a  picture  of  this  fatal  defect  of  a  weak  will, 
that  we  must  quote  it  at  length.  Where  the  right  idea  is  opposed  by 
stronger  impulses,  he  says, 

"the  whole  intellectual  ingenuity  of  the  man  usually  goes  to 
work  to  crowd  it  out  of  sight,  and  to  find  for  the  emergency 
names  by  the  help  of  which  the  dispositions  of  the  moment 
may  sound  sanctified,  and  sloth  or  passion  may  reign  un- 
checked. How  many  excuses  does  the  drunkard  find  when 
each  new  temptation  comes  !  It  is  a  new  brand  of  liquor  which 
the  interests  of  intellectual  culture  in  such  matters  oblige 
him  to  test ;  moreover,  it  is  poured  out  and  it  is  sin  to  waste  it ; 
also  others  are  drinking  and  it  would  be  churlishness  to  refuse. 
Or  it  is  but  to  enable  him  to  sleep,  or  just  to  get  through  this 
job  of  work  ;  or  it  isn't  drinking,  it  is  because  he  feels  so  cold  ; 
or  it  is  Christmas  day  ;  or  it  is  a  means  of  stimulating  him  to 
make  a  more  powerful  resolution  in  favor  of  abstinence  than 
any  he  has  hitherto  made ;  or  it  is  just  this  once,  and  once 
doesn't  count,  etc.,  ad  libitum — it  is,  in  fact,  anything  you 
like  except  bei?ig  a  drunkard.  That  is  the  conception  that 
will  not  stay  before  the  poor  soul's  attention.  But  if  he  once 
gets  able  to  pick  out  that  way  of  conceiving,  from  all  the  other 
possible  ways  of  conceiving  the  various  opportunities  which 
occur,  if  through  thick  and  thin  he  holds  to  it  that  this  is  being 
a  drunkard  and  is  nothing  else,  he  is  not  likely  to  remain  one 
long.  The  effort  by  which  he  succeeds  in  keeping  the  right 
name  unwaveringly  present  to  his  mind  proves  to  be  his  saving 
moral  act."  * 

*  "  Psychology,"  Briefer  Course,  p.  453. 


THE  WILL  So 

7.  It  is  thus  in  the  realm  of  ideas  that  the  real  battles  of  the  will  are 
fought.  To.gr/the  right  ideas  before  the  mind,  and,  once  gotten,  to 
hold  them  there,  are  the  vital  issues  of  good  and  efficient  willing. 
After  that,  the  action  follows  as  a  natural  result  of  the  impulsive 
power  which  right  ideas,  like  all  others,  possess. 

One  qualification  must  be  put  upon  this  principle.  The  action  will 
naturally  follow,  provided  we  have  not  gotten  into  the  habit  of  resting 
content  with  mere  thinking.  It  is  easy  enough  to  fall  into  that  atti- 
tude of  life  which  conceives  that  having  ideas  is  an  adequate  substi- 
tute for  carrying  them  out,  that  mere  thinking  of  good  deeds  can  take 
the  place  of  doing  them,  and  that  feeling  noble  sentiments  is  a  suffi- 
cient manifestation  of  right  character.  Some  of  the  most  inspiring 
passages  in  Rousseau's  "Emile"  deal  with  the  duties  of  a  father 
and  mother  in  bringing  up  their  children.  "Neither  poverty,  nor 
work,  nor  social  considerations,"  says  Rousseau,  "can  relieve  a 
father  of  the  obligation  to  be  his  son's  constant  companion  and 
teacher."  Yet  Rousseau  himself  abandoned  each  of  his  five  children, 
as  soon  as  they  were  born,  to  the  mercies  of  a  foundling  hospital.  He 
never  saw  them  again,  and  their  identity  was  completely  lost ;  while 
he  did  not  trouble  himself  so  much  as  to  keep  a  record  of  the  dates  of 
their  birth. 

Rousseau  was,  of  course,  an  abnormal  man.  Yet  everyone  who 
believes  in  some  good  principle  when  generally  and  abstractly  stated, 
but  fails  to  see  its  possible  application  to  his  particular  and  concrete 
opportunities,  is  treading  the  same  road.  We  fall  into  this  attitude  in 
just  the  same  way  that  we  fall  into  any  other  habit.  The  man  who 
has  had  an  ennobling  thought  and  has  felt  its  impulsive  power,  but 
has  let  it  remain  fruitless,  will  be  liable  afterward  to  let  that  thought 
come  and  go  before  his  mind  without  ever  issuing  in  action.  He  may 
detain  it  in  attention,  and  cherish  it  in  warm  devotion — inside  ;  but  it 
is  impotent  to  make  of  him  a  better  man. 

The  crowning  counsel,  then,  to  secure  strength  and  efficiency  of 
will,  is  the  third  of  the  maxims  of  habit  quoted  at  the  end  of  the  last 
chapter.  Act!  Act  decisively  and  promptly  when  once  you  have 
decided  what  is  right.  Seek  opportunities  to  apply  in  actual  doing  the 
things  you  believe.  This  is  a  counsel  of  especial  importance  in  con- 
nection with  religion  ;  and  it  has  a  very  practical  bearing  upon  the 
work  of  the  teacher.  Do  not  exhort  your  class  abstractly  without 
giving  them  concrete  things  to  do  ;  do  not  fill  them  with  general 
truths  of  morality  and  religion  without  helping  them  to  realize  those 
truths  in    life  and  service.     Otherwise  you  run  the  risk   that  your 


86  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

teaching  itself  may  make  the  means  of  salvation  impotent  in  their 
future  life. 

8.  We  have  described  the  will  thus  far  in  terms  chiefly  of  its  relation 
to  the  intellect.  But  we  must  not  forget  that  the  soul  has  a  trinity  of 
powers — feeling  as  well  as  intellect  and  will.  One's  will  is  deter- 
mined by  his  feelings  as  truly  as  by  his  ideas.  Feeling  may  enter 
into  each  of  the  three  factors  of  an  act  of  will.  As  trend  or  set  of  the 
mind,  a  feeling  helps  to  bring  before  one  ideas  consistent  with  itself. 
It  keeps  the  attention  naturally  and  spontaneously  upon  such  as 
appeal  to  it.  And  it  gives  to  the  idea  it  chooses  a  degree  of  impulsive 
strength  that  carries  one  into  prompt  and  whole-souled  action. 

There  is  a  third  great  counsel,  therefore,  for  the  development  of  a 
strong  and  efficient  will.  To  right  ideas  and  habits  of  decisive  action 
add  the  power  of  feeling.  Get  the  affections  centered  upon  things  that 
are  worth  while.     Enlist  the  heart  as  well  as  the  mind. 

"  The  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection  "  is  life's  eternal  miracle. 
Men  have  sometimes  questioned  the  possibility  of  conversion.  Yet 
it  has  been  a  blessed  fact  in  thousands  of  lives.  Feeling  transforms 
even  the  working  of  that  hidden  mechanism  of  association  that  deter- 
mines one's  thoughts.  Many  a  man's  real  manhood  dates  from  his 
winning  the  love  of  a  wife  or  from  the  opening  to  him  of  the  heart 
of  a  child.  His  thoughts,  his  choices,  his  acts,  all  center  about  his 
new  devotion.  Conversions  are  natural.  They  are  begotten  in  human 
relationships  as  well  as  divine.  Love  is  indeed  "  the  greatest  thing  in 
the  world. ' '     It  saves  men. 

He  who  lacks  feeling,  even  were  his  will  strong  enough  without  it, 
lacks  the  highest  manliness.  The  ideal  of  the  stoics  is  as  untrue  as 
it  is  unlovely.  They  sought  to  look  at  the  world  of  things  and  men 
calmly,  dispassionately  and  impersonally.  Feeling,  they  thought,  but 
clouds  the  vision  and  brings  turmoil  to  the  soul.  A  man  ought  to  be 
purely  rational,  his  mind  what  Huxley  called  a  perfect  "logic 
machine."  And  so  one  might  well  be,  if  he  lived  alone,  the  only 
person  in  a  world  of  matter,  his  only  problem  the  comprehension  of 
impersonal  forces,  and  his  only  aim  to  manage  them.  But  our  world 
is  not  such.  We  live  with  other  persons.  Life's  real  problems  are 
social ;  its  true  values  are  those  of  personal  relationship.  Even  a 
God  who  was  absolutely  alone  would  have  nothing  to  live  for.  We 
need  feeling,  therefore  It  is  the  link  that  binds  man  to  man,  the 
fire  that  warms  an  otherwise  dead  and  cheerless  world.  Without  it,  one 
might  understand,  things,  but  could  never  live  with  and  for  persons. 

Just  as  feeling  exists  forsake  of  personal  relationships,  it  is  begotten 


THE  WILL  87 

only  in  personal  relationships.  You  cannot  by  precept  or  proverb 
teach  a  feeling  to  your  pupil,  or  generate  it  by  command.  It  must  be 
by  life  with  him,  by  giving  yourself  to  him.  The  secret  of  "  personal 
work"  is  personal  relationship. 

9.  The  final  secret  of  strength  of  will  is  the  grace  of  God. 
What  is  true  of  the  feelings  begotten  in  earthly  relationships  is  in- 
finitely more  true  of  those  that  spring  from  the  contact  of  the  soul 
with  its  Father.  There  is  no  love  like  His,  no  feeling  mightier  than 
the  sense  of  His  presence  and  help.  Not  upon  ideas  and  sheer  effort 
of  attention  merely,  not  even  upon  the  strength  alone  that  comes 
from  earthly  affection,  need  the  wills  of  men  rely  ;  they  may  lay  hold 
of  the  love  and  grace  of  an  almighty  God.  The  experience  that  Paul 
records  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  his  letter  to  the  Romans,  is  true  of 
all  humanity.  He  who  fails  of  his  own  strength  to  free  himself  from 
"the  law  of  sin  and  death"  may  yet  live  to  "thank  God  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 


88  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

QUESTIONS 

1.  Why  is  every  idea   an   impulse?     How  does  the  behavior  of 
hypnotized  persons  show  this  ? 

2.  Explain  the  distinction  between  impulsive  and  voluntary  action. 

3.  Upon  what  does  the  impulsive  strength  of  an  idea  depend  ? 

4.  What  three  factors  are  involved  in  an  act  of  will  ?    Upon  what 
does  each  depend  ? 

5.  Why  is  the  will  dependent  upon  the  laws  of  association  ? 

6.  In  what  sense  does  the  will  itself  help  to  determine  what  ideas 
shall  come  before  the  mind  ? 

7.  Show  how  choice  depends  upon  attention. 

8.  Why  is  a  man  weak-willed  who  cannot  concentrate  his  atten- 
tion? 

9.  Why  do  good  resolutions  harm  instead  of  help  if  they  are  not 
carried  out  in  action  ? 

10.  Explain  how  feeling  helps  to  determine  the  will. 

11.  What  is  meant  by  "the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection"  ? 
Show  how  the  final  secret  of  strength  of  will  is  the  grace  of  God. 

12.  In  what  way  is  one's  will  limited  and  determined  by  his  past 
experiences  and  habits  ?     In  what  respects  undetermined  ? 

13.  What  are  some  of  the  things  that  a  teacher  can  do  to  help 
develop  a  good  and  efficient  will  within  his  pupil  ? 

14.  What  argument  can  be  deduced  from  the  teachings  of  this  chap- 
ter in  favor  of  telling  children  what  they  ought  to  do  instead  of  what 
they  ought  not  to  do  ? 


LESSON   XI 

Morality  and  Religion 

Our  primary  interest,  as  Sunday  school  teachers,  is  in  the  moral 
and  religious  growth  of  our  pupils.  We  may  well  conclude  this  part 
of  our  course,  therefore,  with  a  study  of  the  development  of  morality 
and  religion  in  childhood  and  youth. 

I. — MORALITY 

A  little  child  is  neither  moral  nor  immoral.  He  is  the  creature  of 
his  instincts.  His  actions  are  neither  good  nor  bad  ;  they  are  simply 
natural.  Morality  begins  when  he  can  will  his  actions,  and  when  he 
first  sees  a  difference  between  a  better  and  a  worse  way  and  chooses 
one  or  the  other. 

i .  How  does  he  come  to  tell  the  better  from  the  worse  ?  The  ques- 
tion brings  us  face  to  face  with  one  of  the  great  issues  of  philosophy. 
On  the  one  hand  stand  those  who  believe  that  the  distinction  between 
right  and  wrong  is  innate  within  us,  and  that  conscience  is  an  intuitive 
and  infallible  guide.  On  the  other  hand  are  those  who  maintain  that 
our  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong,  like  the  knowledge  of  other  things, 
depends  upon  experience. 

There  is  truth  on  both  sides.  We  shall  understand  it  best  if  we 
think  of  conscience  as  but  another  name  for  the  moral  instincts. 
The  moral  nature  is  instinctive.  Like  other  human  instincts,  it  is 
inborn,  yet  delayed  in  development,  and  is  indefinite  and  modifiable. 

( i )  The  moral  nature  is  inborn.  Without  an  instinctive  capacity, 
no  child  could  be  trained  to  be  a  moral  being.  The  facts  of  the  world 
could  never  give  birth  to  an  ideal.  We  possess  an  innate  power  to 
transcend  in  vision  that  which  is  and  to  apprehend  that  which  ought 
to  be.  We  are  so  made,  moreover,  that  we  feel  in  duty  bound  by 
our  vision  ;  it  weighs  upon  us  as  an  obligation  and  inspires  us  to  its 
own  fulfillment.  No  amount  of  experience  could  confer  upon  us 
the  power  so  to  conceive  ideals,  nor  bring  home  to  us  a  sense  of  obli- 
gation. This  comes  not  from  without  ;  it  is  the  God-given  spirit 
within  man. 

(2)  Yet  the  moral  nature  has  to  develop  ;  it  is  delayed  in  appearance 
and  ripens  slowly.  Not  until  adolescence  does  it  blossom  forth  into 
promise  of  maturity. 

(89) 


90  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

(3)  The  moral  instincts  are  indefinite  and  modifiable.  They  impel 
us  to  form  ideals  and  to  feel  obligations — but  what  in  particular  our 
ideals  shall  be  or  just  what  obligations  we  shall  feel,  is  left  to  be  deter- 
mined by  experience.  Our  habits  and  feelings,  environment  and 
training,  the  ideas  we  have  gained  for  ourselves  or  have  acquired 
from  others — all  these  go  to  shape  our  sense  of  right  and  wrong. 
Conscience  is  not  infallible.  It  needs  to  be  educated.  It  may  tell  one 
that  an  action  is  good  or  morally  indifferent  which  to  another  seems 
bad.  The  consciences  of  some  men  are  hardly  to  be  trusted  at  all. 
Their  finer  sensibilities  are  dulled  ;  their  perspective  distorted. 

(4)  Like  other  instincts,  conscience  becomes  more  completely 
rational  as  life  goes  on.  Feeding,  fear,  sexual  and  parental  love, 
sociability,  imitation — soon  become  more  than  mere  instincts.  We 
get  to  understand  them,  and  give  them  place  in  our  life  because  we  do 
understand.  So  too  our  moral  ideals  and  feelings  grow  less  vague 
and  inarticulate  as  experience  grows.  We  understand  our  duties  and 
make  rational  our  ideals.  Conscience  might  finally  be  best  defined  as 
4 '  reason  concerned  with  moral  issues. ' ' 

2.  The  child  is  a  natural  lawmaker  and  law-observer.  .  Will 
implies  the  recognition  of  law.  When  he  cries  in  order  to  get  some- 
thing, it  is  because  crying  has  brought  it  before.  No  matter  how 
much  you  tell  him  not  to  cry,  or  assure  him  that  crying  will  not  bring 
what  he  wants  ;  if  finally  you  relent  and  crying  does  bring  it,  he  will 
continue  to  use  crying  as  a  means  whereby  to  attain  his  purposes. 
The  law  he  made  for  himself  out  of  his  experience  is  much  more  real 
than  the  law  you  laid  down  in  words. 

By  law,  it  is  plain,  we  here  mean  a  rule  or  principle  for  voluntary 
action.  As  experience  grows,  the  child  makes  rules  for  himself,  part 
consciously  and  part  unconsciously.  They  are  in  general  nothing 
more  than  his  sense  of  what  means  to  employ  to  attain  some  end  ;  but 
they  constitute  the  first  definite  shaping  of  the  moral  nature  within 
him.  There  are  four  great  sources  from  which  he  derives  such  rules. 
We  may  call  them  the  natural  roots  of  law  : 

(1)  Habit  and  association — the  experienced  connection  between 
some  action  and  its  result.  "  If  I  want  some  result,  I  must  do  what 
brought  it  before,"  is  the  principle  upon  which  the  child  acts,  though 
of  course  he  does  not  avow  it  to  himself  in  so  many  words. 

(2)  Imitation — the  observed  behavior  of 'others,  with  its  results. 
44  If  I  want  the  result  they  reached,  I  must  do  as  they  did." 

(3)  Authority— -the  commands  and  wishes  of  other  persons,  en- 
forced by  the  pleasure  or  pain  of  personal  relations.     "If  I  want  to 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  91 

please  them  and  avoid  the  results  of  their  displeasure,  I  must  do  as 
they  say." 

(4)  Social  initiative — the  laws  of  a  social  group  having  common 
aims  and  interests.  "  If  I  want  to  share  with  the  rest,  I  must  do  my 
share." 

Roughly  speaking,  the  order  given  is  the  order  of  appearance  of 
these  roots,  and  the  order  in  which  they  reach  the  culmination  of 
their  control.  Habit  and  association  are  present  from  the  first.  Imita- 
tion appears  the  latter  half  of  the  first  year,  and  reaches  the  climax 
of  control  from  the  fourth  to  the  seventh  years.  Authority  appears 
as  soon  as  the  child  becomes  sensitive  to  the  personal  attitudes  of 
others,  and  its  control  culminates  from  six  to  ten.  Social  initiative 
begins  whenever  the  child  first  feels  its  helpfulness  in  a  common 
task  or  play,  and  assumes  constantly  larger  control  with  the  coming 
of  adolescence.  Of  course,  none  of  these  roots  cease  to  be  produc- 
tive of  laws,  nor  should  they.  Habit,  imitation  and  authority  con- 
tinue to  the  end  of  life. 

3.  We  may  best  understand  the  development  of  morality  if  we 
divide  these  roots  of  law  into  two  classes.  The  first  three  may  be 
called  adaptive  roots,  and  the  last  the  initiative  root.  Through  the 
first  three  the  child  adapts  himself  to  the  conditions  of  his  environ- 
ment, physical  and  social  ;  through  the  last,  he  helps  initiate  laws  as  a 
member  of  the  group  which  forms  them. 

(1)  Throughout  early  and  middle  childhood,  morality  develops 
mainly  from  the  adaptive  roots — habit  and  association,  imitation  and 
authority.  The  rules  of  action  which  the  child  forms  for  himself  ex- 
press his  sense  of  the  conditions  which  are  imposed  upon  him  from 
without.  His  laws  are  mere  statements  of  natural  consequences.  An 
action  is  good  to  him  just  in  so  far  as  it  brings  a  pleasurable  result, 
and  bad  if  the  result  is  disagreeable.  He  has  no  conception  of  its  real 
moral  quality.  He  knows  no  other  obligation  than  that  pleasure  is 
desirable  and  pain  and  unhappiness  to  be  avoided.  He  looks  upon 
punishment  as  simply  a  particular  sort  of  natural  consequence — a  way 
in  which  those  in  authority  visit  upon  him  their  displeasure.  He  has 
no  idea  that  it  may  be  for  sake  of  reform  or  prevention  ;  it  is  rather 
natural  retribution.  Threats  and  promises  mean  little  to  him  ;  it  is 
what  happens,  rather  than  what  you  say  will  happen,  that  shapes  his 
laws  and  actions.  He  thinks  only  of  externals — the  outward  act  and 
its  results — not  of  inward  motives.  His  laws  are  literal  and  partic- 
ular ;  he  is  unable  to  penetrate  to  the  general  principles  involved. 

(2)  In  later  childhood  and  adolescence,  morality  becomes  more  and 


92  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

more  largely  a  matter  of  social  initiative.  It  begins  in  games  with 
rules  and  plays  that  call  for  team-work.  Gangs  and  clubs  are  forms 
of  its  expression.  Lawmaking  and  law  observance  are  spontaneous 
and  natural  under  three  conditions:  (i)  There  is  a  social  group  of 
some  sort  of  which  the  boy  feels  himself  to  be  a  member.  (2)  There 
is  a  common  end  toward  which  the  activity  of  the  group  is  directed, 
and  for  which  he  with  the  rest  feels  responsible.  (3)  There  is  a  phys- 
ical material  for  this  activity  which  makes  possible  the  expression  in 
some  concrete  way  of  its  results.  In  other  words,  if  boys  get  together 
to  do  something,  and  that  something  is  tangible  enough  for  them  to 
see  results,  they  are  naturally  law-abiding.  The  rules  of  the  bunch 
may  be  but  custom  ;  they  may  be  enforced  by  nothing  but  public 
opinion  ;  but  each  boy  feels  that  they  are  his  own,  and  will  stand  by 
them. 

We  need  not  trace  out  again  the  development  of  social  initiative. 
We  have  done  that  at  length  in  the  chapters  upon  adolescence. 
Enough  to  say  that  the  inward  mandate  of  the  newly  awakened 
social  sense  carries  with  it  an  obligation  that  the  pressure  of  external 
conditions  could  never  make  one  feel.  The  laws  of  this  stage  are 
more  than  mere  statements  of  natural  consequence.  They  tell  what 
ought  to  be.     Life  becomes  genuinely  moral. 

4.  The  work  of  the  teacher  in  moral  development  is  to  be 
thought  of  in  a  later  chapter.  Yet  it  may  be  well  to  note  here  some 
immediate  practical  conclusions.  Some  of  them  apply  more  directly 
to  parents  than  to  us ;  but  we  need  to  understand  the  whole  if  we 
would  do  well  our  part. 

( 1 )  Moral  training  must  go  along  with  moral  instruction.  What 
we  tell  a  child  about  right  and  wrong  has  beyond  question  a  great  deal 
to  do  with  his  moral  development.  He  has  constant  need  of  in- 
struction, " precept  upon  precept,  line  upon  line."  But  he  is  all  the 
time  working  over  his  experience  into  laws  and  ideas  of  his  own  ; 
and  these  determine  the  attitude  he  takes  toward  our  teaching  and 
the  way  he  understands  it.  Parents  and  teachers  should  so  manage 
the  conditions  of  his  life  that  the  laws  which  grow  from  the  natural 
roots  of  which  we  have  been  thinking,  may  illumine  and  enforce 
their  instruction,  rather  than  contradict  and  weaken  it.  When  there 
is  conflict,  the  precept  generally  loses  out  and  the  law  from  life  abides. 

(2)  In  early  and  middle  childhood,  training  must  be  mainly  through 
the  pressure  of  external  conditions;  in  later  childhood  and  ado- 
lescence, it  must  be  through  appeal  to  internal  initiative.  This  oppo- 
sition, of  course,  is  not  absolute.     One  cannot  draw  sharp  lines.     The 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  93 

child  who  is  brought  up  to  help  and  to  feel  some  share  of  responsibil- 
ity in  the  family  life  will  early  manifest  something  of  social  initiative. 
The  adaptive  roots,  on  the  other  hand,  persist  in  the  later  stage  of 
moral  development.  They  are  caught  up  into  the  higher  motive  and 
transformed.  Habit  and  association  come  to  deal  with  social  results. 
Imitation  becomes  idealistic.  Authority  takes  the  form  of  public 
opinion. 

(3)  Training  upon  the  adaptive  basis  requires  of  us  consistency  and 
inflexibility.  We  are  not  to  force  the  child  to  do  right ;  we  are  to 
confront  him  with  such  conditions  that  he  will  want  to  do  right.  We 
must  make  his  environment,  physical  and  social,  express  just  that  law 
and  order  that  we  wish  him  to  make  a  part  of  himself.  The  way  is 
plain.  Training  will  begin  at  birth,  with  regular  habits  of  eating  and 
sleeping  and  bathing.  We  will  see  to  it  that  good  actions  without  ex- 
ception bring  pleasant  results  ;  and  bad  actions,  unpleasant.  We  will 
be  consistent  in  our  demands  upon  him  and  in  our  attitudes  toward 
him.  When  we  reason  with  him,  it  will  be  simply  to  explain  how  cer- 
tain consequences  are  bound  to  follow  upon  certain  actions,  not  to 
appeal  to  principles.  If  we  appeal  to  higher  motives,  it  will  never  be 
as  an  excuse  for  transgressing  a  simpler  law,  rather  as  an  additional 
reason  for  obedience. 

Above  all,  we  will  do  nothing  for  sake  simply  of  present  discipline. 
A  six-year-old  disappeared  one  morning  this  summer,  and  his  parents 
got  out  searching  parties  and  dragged  the  river.  At  the  end  of  the 
day  he  came  home  alone  and  asked  whether  the  "census  man"  had 
gone  yet.  His  mother  had  quieted  him  a  few  days  before  by  telling 
him  that  the  census  man  carried  away  naughty  boys  ;  and  he  had  run 
away  when  the  enumerator  appeared.  The  one  unhappy  day  is  by  no 
means  the  only  or  the  worst  effect  of  such  foolish  discipline.  We  are 
too  prone  to  think  of  our  own  wants,  and  to  do  and  say  anything  that 
will  make  the  child  fit  in  with  them.  But  it  all  forms  a  part  of  the 
material  out  of  which  the  child  makes  his  laws.  It  is  the  effect  upon 
him  that  we  must  consider.  No  bit  of  discipline  should  stand  alone  ; 
it  should  be  a  part  of  a  connected  and  consistent  scheme  of  moral 
training. 

(4)  Training  upon  the  basis  of  social  initiative  requires  us  to  share 
the  life  of  the  boy  and  let  him  share  ours.  Give  boys  something  real 
to  do — something  in  which  they  feel  that  you  are  as  vitally  interested 
as  they — and  work  with  them  toward  its  accomplishment.  They  crave 
fellowship  and  responsibility.  Be  a  boy  with  them,  and  they  will  be- 
come men  with  you. 


94  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

There  are  two  difficulties.  The  first  is  with  the  boy.  It  is  the  diffi- 
culty of  making  real  things  seem  real.  The  whole  atmosphere  of  the 
school  seems  artificial  to  him,  and  remote  from  his  own  interests.  He 
does  not  know  his  real  needs.  You  will  often  enough  have  to  throw 
yourself  heartily  into  some  enterprise  that  seems  to  you  trivial,  that 
you  may  maintain  fellowship  and  responsibility  and  in  time  win  him 
over  to  more  serious  things. 

The  other  difficulty  is  with  you.  Can  you  really  make  yourself  one 
of  the  boys,  and  yet  be  teacher  and  guide  ?  Are  you  willing  to  give 
enough  of  yourself?  Will  you  abide  by  the  rules  of  the  bunch  ?  And 
can  you  keep  from  going  too  far,  making  yourself  silly,  and  losing 
their  respect  ? 

A  minister  organized  the  boys  of  his  church  into  a  secret  society 
which  took  as  its  object  the  study  of  nature.  They  soon  became  eager 
collectors  and  dissectors.  The  minister  himself,  young,  athletic  and 
a  good  biologist,  was  their  leader.  But  he  spoiled  it  all  by  telling  the 
secret  to  an  over-inquisitive  mother  who  one  day  let  it  slip  from  her 
tongue.  The  boys  thought  him  a  traitor  ;  and  he  soon  closed  his  work 
in  that  community.  You  ought  ask  nothing  from  boys  that  you  are 
not  yourself  ready  to  give.  You  can  never  lead  them  to  your  virtues 
if  you  cannot  stand  the  test  of  theirs. 

II.    RELIGION 

5.  What  we  have  learned  concerning  the  development  of  morality 
will  help  us  to  understand  the  development  of  religion.  Matthew 
Arnold  said  that  religion  is  but  "  morality  touched  with  emotion."  It 
is  more  than  that ;  but  it  is  at  least  that  much.  Religion  includes 
morality  ;  and  one's  moral  development  has  much  to  do  with  deter- 
mining the  character  of  his  religion. 

"The  thing  a  man  does  practically  believe  (and  this  is  often 
enough  without  asserting  it  even  to  himself,  much  less  to  others)  ; 
the  thing  a  man  does  practically  lay  to  heart,  and  know  for  cer- 
tain, concerning  his  vital  relations  to  this  mysterious  Universe, 
and  his  duty  and  destiny  there,  that  is  in  all  cases  the  primary 
thing  for  him,  and  creatively  determines  all  the  rest.  That  is 
his  religion."  * 

You  can  find  no  better  definition  of  religion  than  this  of  Carlyle's. 
One's  religion  is  his  sense  of  the  disposition  of  the  universe  toward 
himself  and  his  assumption  in  turn  of  an  attitude  toward  it.     It  in- 

*  Carlyle  :  "  Heroes  and  Hero  Worship,"  ch.  i. 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  95 

volves  three  terms  :  one's  own  interests,  his  sense  of  the  disposition 
of  the  universe  toward  them,  and  a  working  plan  for  the  reconciliation 
of  the  two.* 

This  may  seem  a  needlessly  complex  statement  of  what  religion  is. 
We  might  have  said  the  same  thing  in  simpler  words — that  it  is  one's 
sense  of  God's  disposition  toward  him  and  his  answering  attitude 
toward  God.  The  more  complex  definition  is  worth  using,  however, 
because  it  makes  plain  how  closely  the  development  of  religion  is 
bound  up  with  the  development  of  intellect  and  will.  One's  religion 
becomes  different  if  any  one  of  the  three  terms  be  changed — if  he  gets 
new  interests  and  ideals,  if  he  arrives  at  a  clearer  understanding  of  the 
world  about  him  and  of  the  God  whose  disposition  it  shows  forth,  if 
he  conceives  a  better  working-plan  for  his  life.  The  whole  se/f,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  enters  into  religion.  Belief  is  a  matter  of  intellect, 
feeling  and  will.  Religion  changes  as  the  intellect  matures,  as  feeling 
deepens  and  the  will  gives  life  direction.  It  develops  with  personality. 
One's  religion  is  always  a  reflection  of  what  one  is.  The  religion  of  a 
child  must  be  different  from  that  of  a  youth,  and  the  youth's  again 
from  that  of  a  man. 

This  insistence  that  religion  develops  with  the  rest  of  personality 
will  not  be  understood  as  a  denial  of  its  instinctive  character.  Like 
morality,  religion  rests  upon  an  inborn  capacity.  God  has  made  us 
for  Himself,  as  Augustine  says,  so  that  we  can  find  no  rest  save  in 
Him.  And  like  morality  and  other  human  instincts,  the  religious  in- 
stinct is  indefinite  and  modifiable  and  must  be  shaped  by  experience. 

We  will  not  be  understood,  again,  to  deny  the  supernatural  character 
of  religion.  It  is  true  that  in  prayer  man  stands  face  to  face  with  God, 
and  that  the  Spirit  works  within  us  to  the  salvation  of  souls.  It  is 
true  that  the  Father  reveals  Himself  and  His  will  to  the  hearts  of  His 
children.  But  revelation  depends  upon  the  capacity  of  the  recipient 
as  well  as  upon  the  will  of  the  Giver ;  and  the  hardened  heart  may 
resist  even  the  Spirit  of  God.  There  is  a  law  of  apperception  for 
spiritual  things  as  well  as  for  material.  Jesus  spoke  often  of  it,  and 
put  it  in  a  parable  when  He  told  about  the  sower. 

6.  The  religion  of  early  and  middle  childhood  is  one  of  na- 
ture and  of  home.  There  are  four  chief  factors  which  contribute  to 
the  development  of  religion  in  the  life  of  a  child  : 

(i)  His  interest  in  nature.  His  unwearied  senses;  his  eager  ques- 
tions about  the  causes  of  things  and  their  purposes  ;  his  personifying 
imagination  ;  his  delight  in  stories  of  the  miraculous  and  supernatural 
*  Cf.  Perry  :  "  The  Approach  to  Philosophy,"  p.  87. 


96  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

— throw  his  mind  open  to  the  conception  of  God  as  the  Creator  and 
Sustainer  of  the  world  about  him. 

(2)  His  credulity  and  faith.  At  first  the  child  accepts  without  ques- 
tion whatever  we  tell  him  of  God  simply  because  he  believes  anything. 

1 '  A  little  girl  was  questioning  her  mother  minutely  concerning 
the  domestic  habits  of  the  angels.  Her  mother  replied  that  she 
was  sorry  she  could  not  answer  all  the  questions,  as  we  really 
do  not  know  very  much  about  what  goes  on  in  heaven.  At  this 
the  child  looked  very  much  astonished,  and  said,  '  Oh,  don't 
you  know?  Why,  cook  knows  all  about  it!'  "  * 
As  rational  curiosity  develops  and  he  begins  to  put  things  together, 

he  carries  out  to  many  a  naive  and  fantastic  conclusion  the  things  that 

he  has  been  told  about  God. 

Two  boys  were  talking  about  the  rain.  J.  was  giving  what- 
ever information  he  had  to  W.,  and  finally  said,  "When  the 
clouds  are  rent,  the  rain  drops  out.  Rent  means  torn,  just  as 
you  would  tear  your  clothes."  W.,  after  thinking  for  a  time, 
exclaimed,  "I  should  think  God's  mother  would  get  tired 
mending."  A  little  girl  was  convalescing  from  typhoid.  Her 
mother  was  telling  her  of  God's  great  love  ;  that  even  the  spar- 
rows are  included  in  it.  She  retorted  quietly,  "Don't  you 
think  God  spends  too  much  time  on  sparrows  ?  If  He  gave  a 
little  more  attention  to  me,  possibly  I  shouldn't  have  to  go  for 
a  whole  month  without  a  bit  of  real,  solid  food."  A  little  girl 
heard  a  man  in  argument  use  the  phrase,  "There  is  not  a  spot 
on  this  footstool,"  etc.  She  asked,  "What  footstool  ?  "  Being 
told  that  he  referred  to  the  earth  as  the  footstool  of  God, 
"  O-h-h  !  "  she  muttered  in  astonishment.  "  What  long  legs  !  " 
Her  face  was  perfectly  grave  ;  not  for  a  moment  did  she  think 
of  irreverence.  The  suggested  idea  was  that  God  must  be  an 
exceedingly  big  man.  f 

Such  interpretations  are  neither  to  be  feared  nor  laughed  at.  They 
result  from  the  child's  attempt  to  make  his  ideas  coherent,  with  his 
literalness  and  inability  to  comprehend  our  figures  of  speech.  We 
should  meet  them  by  a  simple  explanation  of  the  truth,  not  by  a 
reiteration  of  figures  or  by  telling  the  child  that  he  will  understand 
better  when  he  grows  up.  Certainly  they  need  not  be  taken,  as  they 
are  by  Oppenheim,  as  an  argument  against  giving  children  any  re- 

*  Drummond  :  "An  Introduction  to  Child-Study,"  p.  301. 

t  Condensed  from  Oppenheim  :  "  The  Development  of  the  Child,"  p.  136. 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  97 

ligious  ideas.  Their  reasoning  is  similarly  naive  concerning  everyday 
things.  Kirkpatrick  tells  of  a  little  girl  who  was  promised  something 
at  noon.  Becoming  impatient  later,  she  was  told,  "Noon  is  coming 
soon."  "  Has  noon  footies?"  she  asked.  "No."  "  Well,  how  does 
noon  come,  then  ? "  A  little  boy  asked  what  made  the  locomotive  go 
so  fast,  and  received  the  not  precisely  true  answer  that  it  was  the 
smoke  that  he  saw  coming  from  its  stack.  "But  I  don't  see  any 
smoke  coming  from  that  man's  head,"  he  objected  a  moment  later  as 
a  bicycle  rider  whizzed  by. 

If  parents  meet  the  naive  questions  of  childhood  with  the  simple 
truth,  the  child's  credulity  becomes/*?////.  He  comes  to  know  whom 
he  can  believe.  There  is  a  great  difference  between  credulity  and 
faith.  The  one  is  mere  acceptance  because  no  alternative  presents 
itself ;  the  other  is  positive  trust.  Theologians  have  argued  a  good 
deal  about  the  possibility  of  infant  faith.  There  is  one  kind  of  early 
faith  whose  reality  none  can  doubt— the  faith  of  a  child  in  its  father 
and  mother.  The  father  can  do  no  greater  service  in  the  religious  de- 
velopment of  his  child  than  so  to  meet  the  dawning  reason  that  cre- 
dulity is  replaced  by  perfect  faith  in  himself.  We  need  not  worry 
then  about  the  child's  faith  in  God — the  heavenly  Father. 

(3)  His  affection  and  sensitivity  to  the  personal  attitudes  of  others. 
The  child's  capacity  to  love  and  to  be  loved  is  of  the  very  heart  of  re- 
ligion. To  the  end  of  his  life,  his  acquaintance  with  the  God  who  is 
Love  will  be  influenced  by  the  response  which  his  affections  meet  in 
these  early  days.  His  conception  of  God  as  Father  and  of  himself  as 
God's  child  will  reflect  the  life  of  the  home. 

(4)  His  imitation  and  suggestibility.  "  If  anyone  should  ask  me," 
says  Bishop  McCabe,  "  what  most  impressed  me  in  my  boyhood  days, 
I  would  answer,  The  sight  of  my  father  coming  out  from  the  secret 
place  of  prayer  every  day  at  noon."  *  The  child's  impressionable 
nature  gains  much  that  he  does  not  understand,  and  that  we  ought  not 
try  to  make  him  understand  until  he  seeks  to  know.  A  child  has  no 
business  to  have  a  religious  "experience."  But  our  own  reverent 
worship,  the  prayers  and  songs  of  God's  house,  its  solemn  sacraments, 
its  music,  its  beautiful  windows  and  stately  architecture — most  of  all, 
the  quiet  devotion  of  the  family  altar — all  these  enter  into  the  very 
making  of  his  soul. 

So  we  see  the  justification  of  our  brief  characterization  of  the  re- 
ligion of  childhood  :  it  is  a  religion  of  nature  and  of  home.  The 
child's  interest  centers  in  the  great  world  that  lies  open  to  his  senses, 

*  Pattee  :  "  Elements  of  Religious  Pedagogy,"  p.  149. 

7 


98  LUTHERAN  TEACHKR-TRAININCx  vSERlES 

and  he  seeks  its  Maker.  But  the  positive  content  of  his  religion 
comes  from  the  home.  It  is  what  father  and  mother  make  it.  God 
enters  his  life  because  He  first  dwells  in  theirs.  God  lets  them  for  a 
little  while  stand  in  His  place.  His  trust  and  the  child's  alike  rest  in 
them. 

7.  The  religion  of  later  childhood  is  one  of  life  and  law  in  life. 
The  boy's  interest  is  in  God's  dealings  with  men  rather  than  in  His 
works  in  nature. 

(1)  The  social  instincts  bring  a  new  sense  of  law.  Conscience 
awakens.  Right  is  conceived,  no  longer  as  from  an  external  authority, 
but  as  resting  upon  inward  grounds  of  obligation. 

(2)  The  development  of  the  historical  sense  begets  a  new  interest 
in  life  as  revealed  in  biography  and  history.  It  is  the  time,  we  remem- 
ber, of  hero-worship.  Tales  of  the  mighty  doings  of  great  men  are 
eagerly  sought  and  read. 

(3)  The  religion  of  the  period,  therefore,  centers  about  God  as  re- 
vealing Himself  to  men.  The  boy  thinks  of  God  the  Law-giver  and 
Redeemer,  rather  than  God  the  Creator.  His  is  a  God  of  Right  and 
of  Might,  who  moves  in  human  history  and  accomplishes  His  will 
through  the  lives  of  the  great  heroes  of  faith. 

(4)  We  may  remind  ourselves  of  three  things  that  make  this  period 
especially  significant  in  religious  education  :  its  plasticity  to  habit,  its 
quick  and  retentive  memory,  and  the  fact  that  life's  decision  time 
comes  at  its  close. 

8.  In  adolescence  religion  becomes  PERSONAL.  In  later  as 
well  as  in  early  childhood,  interest  in  religion  is  objective.  The  child 
learns  about  God,  His  works  and  His  life  with  men.  But  now  religion 
comes  home  to  the  will.  It  presents  itself  as  a  way  of  life,  to  be  ac- 
cepted or  rejected.     God  claims  the  soul  that  is  His. 

We  have  already  thought  of  the  characteristics  of  adolescent  re- 
ligion ;  and  we  shall  discuss  its  problems  in  a  coming  chapter  which 
will  treat  of  the  spiritual  goal  of  our  work.  We  need  here  only  to 
remind  ourselves  of  the  three  great  periods  of  religious  awakening  : 

( 1 )  Decision  at  twelve  or  thirteen  is  usually  the  natural  result  of  a 
normal  religious  nurture  and  of  social  suggestion.  The  Lutheran 
Church,  with  its  ideals  of  education  in  religion,  its  belief  that  baptized 
children  are  members  of  the  church,  and  its  rite  of  confirmation,  does 
well  to  center  its  attention  here.  Its  great  problem  is  to  care  for  the 
spiritual  activity  and  further  development  in  grace  of  those  who  have 
been  confirmed. 

(2)  Conversions  at  sixteen  and  seventeen  are  more  apt  to  be  of  the 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  99 

emotio7ial  type.  There  is  a  conflict  of  impulses  and  feelings,  with  a 
final  triumph  of  those  that  lead  to  God.  There  wells  up  something 
within  that  breaks  down  the  barrier  of  selfishness,  indifference  or 
distrust. 

(3)  Conversions  at  nineteen  or  twenty  arc  apt  to  be  of  a  more  intel- 
lectual and  practical  type.  It  is  because  new  insight  has  come,  or 
some  doubt  has  been  resolved  ;  or  because  the  youth  reaches  the  prac- 
tical conviction  that  he  needs  religion  as  part  of  life's  equipment. 

QUESTIONS 

1.  Is  conscience  an  intuitive  and  infallible  guide  ?  Give  reasons 
for  your  answer.  Explain  the  instinctive  character  of  the  moral 
nature. 

2.  In  what  sense  is  the  child  himself  a  natural  lawmaker  and  law- 
observer  ? 

3.  What  are  the  natural  roots  of  law  in  a  child's  life  ?  Distinguish 
the  adaptive  roots  from  the  initiative  root. 

4.  What  is  the  character  of  the  child's  moral  development  through- 
out early  and  middle  childhood  ?  What  change  takes  place  in  later 
childhood  ? 

5.  Discuss  the  work  of  the  teacher  in  the  moral  development  of 
the  pupil. 

6.  What  is  religion  ?  Show  how  the  whole  self  enters  into  religion 
and  how  it  develops  with  personality. 

7.  Characterize  the  religion  of  early  and  middle  childhood.  Dis- 
cuss those  factors  in  a  child's  life  which  contribute  most  to  the  devel- 
opment of  religion  within  him. 

8.  Children  often  get  naive  and  fantastic  ideas  about  God,  and  it  has 
been  argued  from  this  that  we  ought  not  to  teach  religion  until  later 
childhood  or  adolescence.  Is  the  argument  sound  ?  Give  careful 
reasons  for  your  answer. 

9.  Characterize  the  religion  of  later  childhood. 

10.  What  change  in  religious  development  comes  with  adoles- 
cence ?  What  is  apt  to  be  the  character  of  a  conversion  in  each  of  the 
three  great  periods  of  religious  awakening  ? 


PART  TWO 

THE  TEACHER 


PART  II.— THE  TEACHER 

LESSON  XII 

Grades 

We  have  finished  our  study  of  The  Pupil,  and  turn  now  to  the  work 
of  The  Teacher — its  principles  and  methods. 

1.  It  is  first  of  all  essential  that  we  lay  fast  hold  upon  the  conviction 
that  the  Sunday  school  is  a  school.  It  is  not  a  prayer-meeting  or  a 
social  or  philanthropic  organization  ;  it  is  not  the  "children's  church." 
Its  work  is  educational.  It  is  a  place  of  instruction.  We  are  put  here 
to  teach  ;  the  pupils  to  learn.     Our  sessions  center  about  the  lesson. 

There  will  be  devotion,  of  course  ;  but  we  do  not  meet  for  sake  of 
worship.  There  will  be  giving ;  but  we  are  not  organized  to  raise 
and  bestow  money.  There  will  be  social  fellowship  ;  but  the  Sunday 
school  is  not  a  club.  These  things  have  place  in  our  work  just  be- 
cause they,  too,  are  educational.  As  training,  they  supplement  instruc- 
tion, and  are  essential  factors  in  the  spiritual  development  of  those  we 
teach.  But  they  are  means  to  an  end  ;  and  they  are  subordinate  to 
the  chief  means  which  the  Sunday  school  employs — definite  instruc- 
tion in  the  Bible. 

"Such  a  conception  of  the  work  of  the  Sunday  school  recog- 
nizes the  peculiar  relation  of  our  religion  to  the  Bible,  and  the 
necessity  that  underneath  worship  and  devotion,  ethical  instruc- 
tion and  the  persuasion  of  the  will,  missions  and  philanthropy, 
there  shall  be  a  firm  foundation  of  knowledge  of  that  pre- 
eminent revelation  of  God  which  is  the  source  and  support  of 
Christianity.  It  recognizes  the  need  of  one  service,  which, 
having  the  same  ultimate  aim  as  that  which  is  sought  in  all  the 
activities  of  the  church,  shall  seek  that  end  specifically  and 
mainly  by  instruction  in  the  Bible."* 

2.  The  Bible  is  the  chief  text-book  of  the  Sunday  school.     It 

is  God's  Word — the  record  of  His  life  with  men  and  His  revelation 
of  Himself  to  them.  It  is  more  than  history  ;  it  is  a  divine  interpre- 
tation of  history.  Its  poetry  and  prophecy  breathe  the  Spirit  of  the 
living  God  ;  its  letters  of  counsel  and  comfort  were  written  by  men 
who  were  moved  from  on  high.     It  shows  us  Jesus,  "the  Way,  the 

*  Burton  and  Mathews  :  "  Principles  and  Ideals  for  the  Sunday  School,"  p.  6. 

(102) 


GRADES  103 

Truth  and  the  Life."  For  a  score  of  centuries,  men  of  every  nation 
have  found  in  it  inspiration  and  help,  strength  and  peace.  There  is 
no  other  such  book. 

Two  misconceptions  of  the  Bible's  pre-eminence  are  possible,  which 
we  must  be  careful  to  avoid  : 

( i )  The  Bible  is  not  the  sole  text-book  of  the  Sunday  school.  You 
need  helps  for  its  interpretation — the  best  that  scholarship  can  afford. 
There  is  no  class  more  barren  than  one  that  accepts  too  literally  the 
well-meant  but  misleading  statement  that  "the  Bible  is  its  own  best 
commentary."  You  must  supplement  its  teaching,  again,  with  lessons 
drawn  from  human  life,  and,  especially  in  the  lower  grades,  from 
God's  other  book  of  nature.  There  should  be  definite  lessons  and 
courses  in  applied  Christianity — in  missions  and  in  social  betterment. 
Catechetical  instruction  in  the  history  and  doctrines  of  the  Church 
should  be  a  part  of  the  organized  work  of  the  Sunday  school,  not 
something  extraneous  to  it.  There  should  be  a  normal  course,  fitting 
young  people  to  become  teachers. 

(2)  The  fact  that  the  Bible  is  God'1  s  Word  does  not  relieve  us  from 
using  our  minds  to  understand  it.  It  is  no  magic  book,  with  a  mes- 
sage that  miraculously  imprints  itself  upon  idle  souls.  It  is  true  that 
spiritual  truth  must  be  spiritually  discerned.  Yet  the  Bible  is  to  be 
understood  as  is  any  other  book — by  earnest  and  patient  study  in  light 
of  historical  conditions  and  literary  form.  It  calls  for  the  best  that 
there  is  within  us — for  reason  as  well  as  for  heart  and  will.  God  never 
contradicts  Himself.  His  miracles  do  not  abolish  the  natural  laws 
which  He  has  ordained,  but  use  them  for  higher  ends.  The  Spirit  does 
not  do  away  with  human  reason,  but  gives  to  it  a  higher  light  and 
power.  The  laws  of  the  mind  abide.  We  shall  understand  the  Bible 
just  in  so  far  as  we  use  the  powers  which  God  has  given  us  to  under- 
stand anything,  and  so  make  ready  for  the  Spirit's  enlightenment.  We 
shall  teach  the  Bible  rightly  just  in  so  far  as  we  follow  those  principles 
which  the  nature  of  the  mind  itself  sets  for  the  teaching  of 'any  subject. 
The  spiritual  nature  crowns  and  completes  the  intellectual  and  the 
moral ;  it  is  no  substitute  for  them. 

3.  Four  fundamental  principles  underlie  all  teaching.  They 
are  implied  in  what  we  have  learned  concerning  the  development  of 
personality.  We  need  only  bring  them  together  here,  and  give  them 
definite  statement. 

(1)  The  principle  0/"  self-activity.  Not  what  you  tell  a  pupil,  but 
what  he  thinks  as  the  result  of  your  words  ;  not  what  you  do  for  him, 
but  what  he  does  for  himself ;  not  the  impression,  but  his  reaction 


104  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

upon  it — determine  his  development.  You  cannot  put  ideas  into  his 
head  ;  your  words  are  but  symbols  of  the  ideas  that  are  within  your 
own.  He  must  interpret  the  symbols  and  from  them  construct  his 
own  ideas.  Teaching  succeeds  only  in  so  far  as  it  enlists  the  activity 
of  the  pupil.  He  must  think  for  himself.  It  is  your  business  to  wake 
him  to  thought,  to  engage  his  interest,  to  get  him  to  want  ideas,  and 
to  set  before  him  the  material  out  of  which  he  can  make  them. 

(2)  The  principle  of  apperception.  The  pupil  never  makes  an 
idea  wholly  of  new  material.  He  understands  the  new  only  by 
relating  it  to  the  old.  The  body  of  any  new  idea,  therefore,  is  old  ; 
it  is  made  of  material  that  has  come  from  his  own  experience,  re- 
shaped and  altered  only  enough  to  take  in  the  new  item.  The  pupil's 
instincts,  his  habits,  his  old  ideas  determine  the  very  meaning  for  him 
of  any  new  impression.  If  you  do  not  know  what  they  are,  you  can- 
not be  sure  that  he  is  getting  the  meaning  you  intend.*  The  teacher 
must  present  the  truth  in  terms  drawn  from  the  pupil's  own  k?iowledge 
and  experience. 

(3)  The  principle  of  adaptation.  The  pupil  is  growing  and  devel- 
oping. As  life  goes  on,  experience  widens,  powers  mature,  in- 
stincts ripen  and  petrify  into  habits,  interests  come  and  go.  We 
remember  Professor  James'  striking  statement  of  these  facts,  quoted 
in  a  former  chapter,  and  his  conclusion  that  "in  all  pedagogy  the 
great  thing  is  to  strike  the  iron  while  hot,  and  to  seize  the  wave  of  the 
pupil's  interest  in  each  successive  subject  before  its  ebb  has  come." 
Teaching  must  appeal  to  what  is  zuithin  the  pupil ;  its  matter  and  its 
method,  therefore,  mttst  constantly  be  adapted  to  his  changing  powers 
and  interests. 

(4)  The  principle  of  organization.  No  bit  of  teaching,  whether 
that  of  an  hour,  a  day  or  a  year,  should  stand  alone.  It  must  be 
coupled  up  with  what  went  before  and  what  comes  after — and  it  must 
be  coupled  up,  remember,  in  the  pupil's  mind,  not  simply  in  our  own. 
Further,  the  teaching  as  a  whole  must  head  up  into  something  ;  it 
must  have  a  goal  and  work  steadily  toward  it.  The  one-sidedness  of 
the  principle  of  adaptation  is  here  corrected.  We  must  do  more  than 
simply  feed  the  changing  interests  ;  we  must  feed  them  to  some  pur- 
pose. The  goal  of  education  cannot  be  left  to  the  child's  spontaneous 
instincts,  however  largely  they  determine  its  matter  and  method  at 

*Dr.  McKinney  tells  the  story  of  a  boy  who  seemed  repelled  by  the  thought  of 
God's  fatherhood.  The  teacher  was  much  puzzled  until  he  called  one  day  at  the 
boy's  home,  to  find  out  that  the  father  had  kept  him  and  his  mother  out  in  the 
cold  the  whole  of  the  previous  night,  threatening  in  his  drunken  frenzy  to  kill 
them.—"  Bible  School  Pedagogy,"  p.  60. 


GRADES  105 

any  particular  stage.  Teaching  aims  at  an  organization  of  ideas  and 
powers  within  the  pupil ;  and  it  viust  work  toward  this  in  an  orderly 
and  consistent  ?<.  'ay. 

4.  If  we  are  to  follow  these  principles  the  Sunday  school  must 
be  graded.  "  One  of  the  chief  problems  before  the  Sunday  school 
to-day  is  how  to  make  of  it  a  real  school."*  In  late  years,  this 
problem  has  centered  definitely  about  the  question  of  a  graded  cur- 
riculum. 

Practically  all  Sunday  schools  have  recognized  the  principle  of 
grading  in  organization  and  method.  They  have  at  least  separated 
the  ''infant  school"  from  the  "adult  school,"  and,  though  both 
schools  have  had  the  same  lesson,  have  made  some  attempt  to  suit 
the  method  of  teaching  to  the  maturity  of  the  pupil.  From  this  simple 
beginning  there  have  developed  graded  organizations  of  all  degrees 
of  elaborateness,  with  a  corresponding  differentiation  of  methods. 

The  great  question  has  been :  Should  the  lessons  themselves  be 
graded?  The  plan  of  uniform  lessons,  adopted  in  1872  by  what  then 
became  the  International  Sunday  School  Association,  did  not  recog- 
nize this  principle.  The  lessons  were  uniform  in  two  senses.  The 
material  to  be  taught  was  the  same  ( 1 )  for  every  class  in  the  school, 
as  well  as  (2)  for  every  school  cooperating  in  what  soon  became  a 
world-wide  movement.  Uniformity  between  schools  is  eminently 
desirable.  It  means  practical  cooperation  in  the  enlistment  of 
resources  that  single  schools  could  not  begin  to  command.  We  owe 
to  this  cooperation  the  present  development  of  the  Sunday  school. 
I  'niformity  between  classes  was  once  desirable  for  the  same  reason. 
But  with  the  widening  of  resources  and  the  growth  of  educational 
ideals  in  late  years,  its  value  has  come  more  and  more  to  be  called  in 
question. 

The  advantages  of  uniformity  between  classes  cannot  be  .better 
stated  than  they  have  been  by  Burton  and  Mathews  : 

"  It  secures  unity  in  the  school,  enabling  the  teachers  to  co- 
operate in  the  study  of  the  lesson,  and  giving  the  superintend- 
ent an  opportunity  to  direct  and  stimulate  the  work  of  instruc- 
tion throughout  the  school.  It  secures  unity  in  the  home, 
making  it  possible  for  the  father  or  the  mother  to  assist  and 
guide  in  the  study  of  the  lesson  at  home  by  the  whole  family 
from  youngest  to  oldest,  and  facilitating  the  association  of 
family  prayer  with  the  study  of  the  Bible  in  the  Sunday  school. 
It  immensely  facilitates  the  preparation  and  publication  of  helps 
*  Coe  :  "  Education  in  Religion  and  Morals,"  p.  287. 


106  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

on  the  part  of  religious  papers  and  in  the  form  of  quarterlies 
and  lesson  papers.  It  enlists  on  the  side  of  Bible  study  in  the 
Sunday  school  an  immense  capital  of  brains  and  money.  It 
appeals  powerfully  to  sentiment,  and  secures  the  help  of  that 
important  ally.  The  superintendent  and  teacher  in  every  city 
and  hamlet  in  the  land,  the  parent  in  every  home,  even  the 
child  himself,  feels,  or  may  feel,  the  stimulus  and  inspiration  of 
the  fact  that  the  prayerful  thought  of  the  Christian  world  is 
turning  with  him  to  the  portion  of  Scripture  assigned  for  a  cer- 
tain Sunday's  study."  * 

The  chief  disadvantages  of  such  uniformity  are  : 
(i)  The  lessons  are  not  adapted  to  the  pupil.  The  principle  of 
adaptation  applies  to  matter  as  well  as  to  method.  We  have  seen  how 
the  religion  of  early  childhood  differs  from  that  of  later  childhood, 
and  it  again  from  that  of  adolescence.  Shall  we  attempt  to  teach  the 
same  doctrines,  or  the  same  portions  of  the  Bible,  to  pupils  in  such 
widely  different  stages  of  development?  A  little  child  cannot  under- 
stand the  messages  of  the  prophets  or  the  spiritual  insight  of  John. 
You  have  doubtless  experienced  the  difficulty  of  trying  to  teach  chil- 
dren under  eight  or  nine  such  matters  as  Isaiah's  conception  of  the 
Messiah,  the  temptation  of  Jesus,  the  parable  of  the  unjust  steward, 
Thomas'  doubt,  or  Paul's  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith. 

Such  was  not  God's  own  way  of  teaching.  The  Bible  contains  the 
record  of  His  education  of  the  human  race.  Its  parts  are  not  all 
alike.  It  is  a  progressive  revelation.  He  taught  simple  lessons  to  the 
race  in  its  childhood,  and  only  in  the  "fullness  of  time,"  when  the 
experience  of  thousands  of  years  had  made  men  ready  to  understand, 
did  He  show  Himself  to  them  in  the  life  of  Jesus. 

"The  Bible,  on  the  whole,  is  pedagogical  in  its  general 
arrangement.  ...  In  the  Old  Testament  the  wonder  and  folk 
stories,  the  creation  and  nature  stories,  come  first.  These  ap- 
peal to  the  little  child  under  six.  Farther  along  are  the  law  and 
order  books,  the  spectacular  scenes  of  Egypt,  the  Red  Sea, 
Sinai,  Marah,  Nebo  and  the  like.  Then  come  the  historical, 
military,  patriotic,  then  the  prophetic  and  reformatory,  with  an 
occasional  glimpse  of  the  Utopian  world  in  the  future.  That  is 
all  pedagogical.  So  also  is  the  New  Testament.  The  doc- 
trinal part  is  near  the  close  where  it  belongs  in  any  proper 
course  of  study  for  the  school."  f 
*  "  Principles  and  Ideals  for  the  Sunday  School,"  p.  128. 
t  Haslett :  "  The  Pedagogical  Bible  School,"  p.  55.    I  have  hesitated  to  use  this 


GRADES  107 

(2)  In  the  mind  of  the  pupil,  the  system  contains  no  principle  of 
progression.  He  does  not  feel  himself  advancing  from  year  to  year. 
He  knows  that,  however  thoroughly  he  may  study  and  however  rapidly 
be  promoted  from  class  to  class,  he  will  still  have  set  for  him  the  same 
lesson  as  every  other  pupil  in  the  school.  There  is  no  incentive  in  the 
thought.  There  seems  to  be  no  tangible  result ;  he  does  not  feel  that 
he  is  getting  anywhere. 

This  lack  of  progression  results  often  in  a  dulled  interest  as  the 
pupil  approaches  the  lessons  of  later  years.  He  enters  Sunday  school, 
let  us  say,  at  four ;  then  by  eleven  he  has  covered  about  the  whole 
Bible,  in  so  far  as  the  Sunday  school  ever  gives  him  a  chance  at  the 
whole.  Just  at  the  time  of  life  when  his  interest  in  religion  and  in  the 
Bible  should  be  most  fresh  and  vigorous,  he  begins  again  the  round  of 
lessons.  What  if  the  passages  are  somewhat  different  and  the  titles 
new  ?  He  is  bound  to  feel  that  he  is  learning  again  something  that  he 
already  knows.  "One  of  the  most  real  difficulties  in  the  Sunday 
school,"  says  Forbush,  "is  the  fact  that  to  the  boy  the  Bible  is  trite. 
It  is  hard  to  find  a  boy  who  does  not  know  as  much  about  the  Bible 
as  he  wants  to."*  College  teachers  of  Biblical  literature  have  to 
combat  an  inertia  caused  by  the  student's  tacit  assumption  that  he  has 
not  much  to  learn  about  the  familiar  old  Book.  The  uniform  Sunday 
school  lessons  may  lead  to  a  premature  sophistication  which  deadens 
the  interest  of  adolescence.  The  youth  does  not  revise  his  childish 
conceptions  of  religious  doctrines,  and  the  man  becomes  a  weakling 
or  a  doubter. 

(3)  Such  a  curriculum  has  no  connection  with  the  rest  of  the' 
pupiV s  education.  Religion  is  worthless  if  kept  apart  from  life.  Yet 
we  educate  our  children  as  though  we  aimed  at  their  separation.  The 
public  schools  give  religion  no  recognition  ;  the  Sunday  school  teaches 
the  same  lesson  to  the  high  school  senior  as  to  the  child  in  the  first 
grade.  Then  we  try  to  put  together  by  exhortation  what  by  education 
we  have  torn  asunder. 

(4)  The  lessons  fail  to  give  a  cornice  ted  view  of  the  Bible  in  its 
wholeness  and  in  the  onward  sweep  of  its  progressive  revelation.  The 
Bible  is  not  a  collection  of  dogmas  or  of  proof-texts,  in  all  its  parts 

quotation,  or  to  refer  at  all  to  God's  method  of  teaching  the  race,  because  I  attach 
little  value  to  the  "recapitulation  theory"  which  colors  so  much  of  Haslett's 
thought.  Our  point  is  not  that  the  child  does,  or  ought  to,  pass  through  all  the 
stages  of  religious  life  that  the  race  has  passed  through,  and  in  the  same  order; 
but  simply  that  God  Himself  fitted  the  content  of  His  teaching  to  the  capacity  of 
His  pupils. 
*  "  The  Boy  Problem,"  p.  no. 


108  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

of  equal  value.  Neither  is  it  a  body  of  writings  and  records,  each  of 
which  carries  its  own  moral  and  spiritual  message  independently  of 
the  rest.  It  is  the  record  of  a  great  religious  experience — the  religious 
experience  of  a  nation  taught  by  God  Himself,  yet  learning  slowly 
and  with  many  mistakes.  It  culminates  in  the  life  and  teachings  of 
Jesus,  in  whom  dwelt  "all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily."  We 
fail  to  grasp  God's  revelation  if  we  take  it  text  for  text,  or  incident 
for  incident,  and  seek  in  each  some  spiritual  truth.  The  parts  have 
meaning  only  in  light  of  the  whole.  "The  law  was  our  schoolmaster 
to  bring  us  unto  Christ." 

The  International  Committee  has  sought  earnestly  to  realize  this 
principle  in  its  choice  of  lessons  ;  yet  in  practical  effect  the  lessons 
have  lent  themselves  to  a  split-up  mode  of  interpretation.  There  is 
question  whether  a  system  of  uniform  lessons  can  ever  avoid  this 
tendency,  in  view  of  the  necessity  of  choosing  passages  which  can 
convey  some  truth  to  the  mind  of  every  pupil.  Certainly  a  graded 
course  can  more  definitely  compel  the  assumption  of  the  historical 
point  of  view. 

(5)  A  uniform  curriculum  takes  no  account  of  the  critical  periods 
in  the  spiritual  development  of  the  pupil.  Adolescence  has  its  special 
needs.  The  lessons  should  be  such  as  to  win  a  consecration  of  the 
life. 

5.  The  International  Graded  Lessons,  authorized  by  the  Conven- 
tion at  Louisville  in  1908,  are  proving  to  be  the  practical  solution  of 
the  problem.  Carefully  prepared  by  teachers  of  long  experience, 
they  accord  with  the  principles  of  teaching  set  forth  above,  and  defi- 
nitely fulfill  the  requirements  which  the  uniform  lessons  failed  to 
meet.  They  combine  all  the  advantages  of  uniformity  and  coopera- 
tion between  schools  with  none  of  the  disadvantages  of  uniformity 
between  classes. 

Those  who  have  used  these  lessons  have  found  the  pros  and  cons  of 
this  chapter  so  much  ancient  history.  If  your  experience  has  been 
that  of  most  schools,  you  will  never  go  back  to  the  uniform  lessons. 
You  need  no  discussion  of  the  work  of  the  various  departments.  It 
is  already  familiar  to  you  ;  and  you  can  find  no  sounder  and  more 
practical  methods  than  those  given  in  your  teacher's  text-book. 

Those  who  have  not  yet  used  these  lessons  face  no  more  serious 
issue  than  that  of  whether  or  not  to  take  them  up.  A  few  practical 
suggestions  may  help  you  : 

( 1 )  You  ought  to  know  what  the  graded  course  is  like.  Send  for  a 
text-book  of  the  grade  you  are  interested  in,  and  find  out.     If  you  get 


GRADES  109 

the  first  book  of  the  year,  it  will  be  worth  a  great  deal  just  for  the 
practical  suggestions  it  contains  as  to  methods  of  teaching. 

(2)  Do  not  be  afraid  of  the  seeming  complexity  of  a  graded  course. 
It  is  flexible.  You  may  make  it  as  elaborate  as  you  please.  Begin 
easily,  with  just  one  grade  in  each  department.  For  that  matter,  you 
need. not  have  departments  at  all  if  you  do  not  wish.  Simply  have 
separate  classes,  each  studying  the  course  best  adapted  to  the  develop- 
ment of  its  members. 

(3)  Do  not  be  afraid  of  physical  conditions.  Ideally,  a  graded  course 
calls  for  the  complete  separation  of  departments,  each  having  its  own 
room  and  its  own  opening  and  closing  services  as  well  as  its  own 
lessons.  Practically,  the  best  you  have  will  do  ;  and  you  can  handle 
the  course  even  if  your  whole  Sunday  school  must  meet  in  one  room, 
and  that  the  auditorium  of  the  church. 

(4)  Do  not  be  afraid  of  the  pupils — that  they  will  not  like  the 
stricter  work,  or  the  separation  into  grades.  The  added  interest  of 
the  lessons  will  make  up  for  that.  If  you  find  it  difficult  to  begin  the 
grading,  follow  that  of  the  public  schools. 

(5)  Do  not  be  afraid  of  yourself.  You  will  no  longer  be  able  to  read 
comments  on  the  lesson  in  every  paper,  or  to  study  it  at  a  weekly 
meeting  of  all  the  teachers  of  your  school.  You  will  have  to  stand 
more  squarely  upon  your  own  feet.  But  the  teacher's  text-books  give 
definite  and  wise  guidance  for  every  lesson,  and  you,  as  well  as  the 
pupil,  will  feel  the  stimulus  of  a  new  interest.  Moreover,  you  will 
stay  within  the  same  grade,  or  at  least  the  same  department ;  and  that 
means  that  you  will  get  a  better  mastery  each  year  of  both  lesson 
material  and  methods.  You  can  meet  each  week  with  the  teachers  of 
your  grade  in  other  Sunday  schools,  just  as  you  used  to  meet  with  the 
teachers  of  your  own  school,  to  study  the  lesson  and  to  help  one 
another  by  an  exchange  of  experience. 

6.  Whether  your  school  adopts  graded  lessons  or  not,  its  aims 
and  methods  must  be  graded.  You  must  strive,  in  so  far  as  you 
can,  to  teach  according  to  the  principles  of  self-activity,  apperception, 
adaptation  and  organization. 

The  fundamental  aim  of  every  Sunday  school  class  is  the  same — the 
moral  and  spiritual  development  of  the  pupil.  We  seek  to  bring 
those  we  teach  to  a  knowledge  of  God  as  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ, 
and  to  loyal,  whole-hearted  service  in  His  kingdom.  But  this  general 
aim  can  be  realized  only  in  so  far  as  we  meet  the  particular  interests 
and  needs  of  the  pupil  at  each  stage  of  his  development.  Each  de- 
partment of  the  Sunday  school,  therefore,  will  have  its  specific  aim. 


110  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

(i)  The  Beginners  are  getting  their  first  acquaintance  with  God 
as  the  loving  Father.  The  child's  life  in  the  home  and  the  eager 
reaching  out  of  his  senses  toward  nature  about  him,  form  the  apper- 
ceptive basis  upon  which  we  must  build. 

(2)  The  meaning  which  the  Primary  pupil  gets  out  of  the  stories 
we  tell  him  is  determined  by  the  new  ideas  he  is  gaining  in  public 
school  and  by  the  distinction  he  is  coming  to  make  between  the  world 
of  fact  and  that  of  the  imagination.  We  must  seek  to  coordinate  our 
teaching  with  that  of  the  school,  and  so  to  present  the  simple  truths 
about  God,  His  works  in  nature  and  His  dealings  with  men,  that  the 
child  may  feel  them  to  have  a  place  in  the  world  of  fact. 

(3)  The  Junior  apperceives  the  truth  in  light  of  his  social  instincts 
and  his  hero-worship.  Our  teaching  must  center  about  the  moral  life, 
as  commanded  in  God's  law  and  revealed  in  the  person  of  Jesus  and 
in  the  heroes  of  the  faith.  We  seek  to  present  the  ideal  of  moral  hero- 
ism, to  deepen  the  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  right,  and  to  give  a 
vision  of  the  glory  of  service. 

(4)  The  work  of  the  Sunday  school  centers  about  the  Intermediate 
department.  It  is  the  decision  time.  We  shall  bend  all  our  energies, 
first  to  secure  a  consecration  of  heart  and  will  to  God's  service,  then 
to  help  the  pupil  carry  out  his  decision  in  actual  living  and  doing.* 

(5)  Our  aim  in  the  Senior  department  is  (a)  to  meet  the  doubts  and 
intellectual  difficulties  which  are  often  characteristic  of  later  adoles- 
cence ;  (b)  to  help  the  pupil  clear  up  his  moral  and  religious  concep- 
tions and  formulate  his  beliefs  ;  (c)  to  train  for  definite  and  specific 
service.  The  work  of  the  department  should  be  in  large  part  elect- 
ive ;  and  the  courses  will  include  both  some  of  a  predominantly 
intellectual  character  and  others  more  definitely  practical.  The  nor- 
mal course  should  begin  in  this  department.  We  shall  seek  earnestly 
for  the  conversion  of  those  who  have  not  yet  dedicated  themselves 
to  God. 

(6)  We  have  said  nothing  thus  far  about  the  men  and  women  of  the 

*  It  is  very  unfortunate  that  the  International  Wessons  have  saddled  this  de- 
partment with  so  meaningless  and  inappropriate  a  name  as  "Intermediate."  It 
is  not  intermediate,  but  central ;  and  we  should  do  everything  to  make  the  pupi! 
feel  it  to  be  such.  The  term,  furthermore,  has  often  been  applied  to  the  depart- 
ment below  this  ;  and  this  has  been  called  the  Junior.  An  adolescent  dislikes 
anything  that  savors  of  childishness.  He  feels  himself  reaching  out  toward 
maturity.  It  would  be  far  better  to  give  the  department  a  name  that  would  con- 
vey some  impression  of  itsimportance  and  appeal  to  this  sense  of  life's  expansion. 
The  term  "  Secondary  "  would  do  ;  but  it  would,  perhaps,  be  better  frankly  to  call 
it  the  "  High  School  "  of  the  church. 


GRADES  •  111 

Advanced  department.  We  shall  deal  with  some  of  the  problems  of 
the  department  in  a  later  chapter.  Enough  here  to  say  that  its 
courses  should  be  wholly  elective,  and  largely  of  a  practical  character. 
The  advanced  students  should  get  what  they  want  and  what  they 
need.  No  one  ought  ever  graduate  from  the  Sunday  school.  We 
all  need  it  for  sake  of  the  spiritual  nourishment  of  stated  Bible  study, 
and  for  maintenance  of  the  intellectual  vigor  of  our  faith.  More  than 
this,  the  Advanced  department  has  wonderful  possibilities  as  a  school 
of  practical  religion.  A  well-conducted  class  for  mothers  will  help 
solve  many  problems  respecting  the  children,  as  well  as  give  to  the 
mothers  themselves  a  new  inspiration.  A  class  for  men  in  social  and 
civic  problems  may  help  toward  better  conditions  in  your  city,  as  well 
as  make  religion  vital  to  the  men  themselves. 

QUESTIONS 

i.  Why  is  instruction  in  the  Bible  the  chief  work  of  the  Sunday 
school  ?  From  what  other  sources  than  the  Bible  may  it  draw  mate- 
rial for  instruction  ? 

2.  Explain  the  four  principles  of  teaching  brought  out  in  this  lesson 
— self-activity,  apperception,  adaptation  and  organization. 

3.  State  the  chief  advantages  of  a  system  of  ungraded  and  uniform 
lessons. 

4.  What  are  the  chief  disadvantages  of  such  a  system  ?  Give  a 
careful  statement  of  reasons  for  each. 

5.  What  is  the  specific  aim  of  each  department  of  the  Sunday 
school  ?  Show  how  this  aim  depends  upon  the  interests  and  needs  of 
the  pupil  in  each  stage  of  development. 


LESSON  XIII 
Methods  of  Teaching 

The  teacher  must  do  more  than  study  his  lesson  ;  he  must  plan 
definitely  just  lioiv  to  teach  it.  You  cannot  know  your  subject  too 
thoroughly.  It  is  the  primary  requisite  of  good  teaching.  But  it  will 
not  insure  good  teaching.  You  must  know  how,  as  well  as  what  to 
teach. 

We  are  often  misled  by  the  ease  and  spontaneity  of  a  great  preacher 
who  uses  no  notes,  or  of  a  teacher  who  inspires  us  with  his  own  vision 
of  the  truth.  We  suppose  that  they  need  not  prepare  in  the  pains- 
taking way  that  we  must.  We  wish  that  we  had  their  genius.  But 
the  secret  of  genius,  it  has  been  well  said,  is  hard  work.  Many  hours 
of  mental  travail  lie  back  of  that  clear-cut,  inspiring  sermon  ;  the  per- 
fect mastery  of  a  plan  gives  surety  of  movement  to  the  thought  of  the 
teacher.  We  hear  sometimes  of  "born  teachers."  They  are  few; 
and  those  few  love  their  work  too  much  ever  to  attempt  it  without 
preparation.  The  moment  one  begins  to  think  of  himself  as  a  born 
teacher,  he  is  in  danger  of  losing  his  birthright. 

There  is  no  one  method  for  Sunday  school  teaching.  Methods 
are  means  to  an  end.  They  depend  upon  the  nature  of  the  pupil, 
upon  the  subject  to  be  taught,  upon  the  material  conditions  which  the 
teacher  faces  and  the  resources  at  his  command.  Each  Sunday  pre- 
sents its  specific  problem.  You  must  fit  your  method  to  conditions  ; 
it  is  your  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  day. 

In  this  chapter  we  shall  think  of  the  general  methods  of  conducting 
a  class.  We  shall  consider  the  more  important  advantages  and  diffi- 
culties of  each,  and  the  grade  of  pupils  to  which  it  is  best  adapted. 

i.  Story-telling.  Whether  it  deal  with  fact  or  fancy,  a  story  is  a 
work  of  the  imagination.  It  makes  the  truth  live.  It  makes  us  see 
the  things  it  tells,  and  stirs  our  hearts  to  feel  and  our  wills  to  act. 
"Of  all  the  things  that  a  teacher  should  know  how  to  do,"  says 
President  Hall,  "the  most  important,  without  exception,  is  to  be  able 
to  tell  a  story. ' ' 

There  are  three  ways  in  which  we  may  use  the  story  : 

(i)  As presentatioi.  The  lesson  itself  may  be  cast  into  story  form. 
This  is  essential  in  the  two  lower  departments  ;  and  there  the  telling 

(112) 


METHODS  OF  TEACHING  113 

of  the  story  is  the  central  work  of  the  hour.  In  the  higher  depart- 
ments, too,  it  is  sometimes  well  to  present  the  lesson  as  a  story  if  it  is 
full  of  dramatic  action. 

(2)  As  preparation.  A  story  may  be  very  effectively  used  to  lead 
up  to  the  lesson — some  bit  of  everyday  experience,  perhaps,  that  will 
arouse  interest  in  the  subject  to  be  presented  ;  or  a  review  of  previous 
lessons  in  quick,  vivid  narration  ;  or  the  tale  of  what  happened  be- 
tween the  events  of  the  last  lesson  and  those  of  this. 

(3)  As  illustration.  The  teacher  needs  no  power  more  than  that 
of  conceiving  analogies— seeing  what  the  truth  is  like,  and  presenting 
it  in  terms  of  its  likeness.  That  is  what  Jesus  did.  He  was  always 
telling  stories.  He  taught  in  concrete  pictures  that  brought  home 
the  truth  to  the  simplest  mind.  "  Without  a  parable  spake  He  not 
unto  them." 

2.  The  recitation  method  involves  three  steps  :  ( 1 )  assignment  of 
the  lesson  ;  (2)  the  pupil's  study  ;  (3)  the  recitation  itself.  It  enlists 
the  cooperation  of  teacher  and  pupil.  Each  must  do  his  part.  The 
pupil  must  study  and  recite  ;  the  teacher  must  assign  the  lesson  and 
conduct  the  recitation.  Most  Sunday  school  classes  are  conducted 
ostensibly  in  accordance  with  this  method.  In  comparatively  few, 
however,  is  it  really  carried  out.  It  makes  much  greater  demands 
upon  both  teacher  and  pupil  than  we  are  wont  to  think. 

Some  of  us  may  have  had  the  fortune  to  be  in  a  class  where  the 
teacher  asked  only  the  questions  printed  in  the  lesson  leaf.  They 
went  something  like  this  :  "  Where  did  Peter  and  John  go  at  the  ninth 
hour?  (v.  1).  What  time  was  this?  (see  notes).  Why  did  they  go? 
Whom  did  they  see  there?  (v.  2).  How  long  had  he  been  lame? 
What  did  he  ask  of  them?  (v.  3).  What  did  Peter  say  ?  (v.  4).  What 
did  the  lame  man  expect?  (v.  5).  What  did  Peter  then  say?  (v.  6). 
What  then?  (v.  7).  What  did  the  lame  man  do?  (v.  8)."  The  teacher 
put  these  questions  to  the  members  of  the  class  in  turn  ;  and  each 
answered  by  reading  the  passage  indicated. 

That  was  not  a  recitation  at  all.  It  was  simply  nibbling  at  a  few  pre- 
digested  Bible  verses.  Neither  the  teacher  nor  the  pupils  did  anything 
except  look  at  the  page  and  open  their  mouths.  There  was  no  think- 
ing going  on.  There  had  been  no  study  on  the  part  of  the  pupils ; 
and  there  was  no  evidence  of  it  on  the  part  of  the  teacher. 

Our  example  is  purposely  somewhat  extreme.  No  lesson  leaf  would 
ask  quite  such  feeble  questions,  or  indicate  so  precisely  the  answer  to 
every  one.  No  teacher  of  any  common  sense  would  do  nothing  more 
than  read  off  for  answer  such  a  list.     But  most  pupils  will,  if  they  get 

8 


114  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

a  chance,  do  exactly  what  those  pupils  did.  So  long  as  their  lesson 
leaves  are  open  at  all,  they  will  "  look  up  "  the  answer  to  any  ques- 
tion addressed  to  them,  and  read  it,  either  from  the  verses  of  the 
lesson  or  from  the  editor's  notes.  Now  and  then  a  pupil  is  to  be 
found  who  will  put  on  an  air  of  knowledge  by  paraphrasing  the  an- 
swer he  finds  in  the  book  ;  but  most  of  them  are  not  ashamed  frankly 
to  read  it. 

Now,  it  may  be  quite  legitimate  for  pupils  to  do  this,  but  it  is  not 
reciting.  The  recitation  method  holds  the  pupil  responsible  for  some 
definite  piece  of  work,  which  he  is  to  do  outside  of  the  recitation 
period,  and  upon  which  he  is  to  report  in  class.  It  demands  that  he 
study. 

It  exacts  yet  more  of  you — the  teacher.  It  makes  you  study  two 
lessons  for  every  Sunday — that  upon  which  the  class  recites  and  that 
which  you  assign  for  the  coming  week.  It  makes  you  divide  the 
teaching  period  into  two  parts — one  devoted  to  the  recitation  and  one 
to  the  assignment  of  the  next  lesson.  It  confronts  you,  moreover, 
with  two  practical  difficulties  : 

( i )  Hozu  shall  you  get  the  pupil  to  study  ?  That  is  a  hard  problem, 
and  one  upon  which  any  teacher  of  experience  speaks  with  becoming 
humility,  (a)  You  should  show  him  how  to  study.  Public  school 
teachers  are  just  finding  out  that  it  pays  to  take  stated  periods  to  study 
with  their  children  and  to  teach  them  how  to  go  at  their  lessons,  (b) 
Your  assignment  of  the  lesson  for  the  coming  Simday  should  be  such 
as  to  arouse  his  interest  and  give  him  a  motive  for  study.  It  should 
make  him  feel  that  the  lesson  contains  something  that  he  wants  to 
know,  (r)  You  should  assign  a  definite  task  to  each  pupil,  for  which 
you  will  hold  him  responsible.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  you  ex- 
pect each  to  study  the  lesson,  or  to  answer  the  questions  of  the 
text-book,  or  to  do  whatever  writing  or  picture-pasting  or  map-draw- 
ing it  requires.  There  must  be  some  special  bit  of  work  for  each,  the 
results  of  which  he  is  to  bring  back  to  class  the  next  Sunday.  The 
fact  that  you  have  the  work  so  outlined  makes  him  feel  that  you  are 
really  interested  in  the  lesson,  and  he  is  ready  to  help  you.  His  doing 
that  bit  of  work,  then,  gives  a  motive  that  generally  leads  him  to  do 
the  work  that  all  are  to  do.  (d)  Above  all,  never  assign  anything 
that  you  will  not  call  for  at  the  next  period  ;  never  fail  to  call  for  and 
use  everything  assigned.  This  is  a  rule  that  will  often  be  hard  to  live 
up  to  ;  but  you  must  hold  to  it  as  rigidly  as  you  can.  It  is  the  one 
that  clinches  all  the  rest.  Laxity  here  takes  vitality  out  of  the  pupil's 
work,  and  soon  begets  carelessness  and  indifference. 


METHODS  OF  TEACHING  115 

(2)  How  shall  you  retain  the  attention  and  interest  of  the  pupil 
throughout  the  recitation  t  It  is  quite  possible  that  your  very  success 
in  getting  the  pupil  to  study  may  be  your  undoing  in  the  recitation 
period.  If  you  do  nothing  more  than  hear  a  recitation,  testing  knowl- 
edge and  receiving  reports  on  tasks  assigned,  the  period  will  be  very 
monotonous  and  dry  to  the  pupil — and  more  so  the  more  thoroughly 
he  has  studied  the  lesson.  This  becomes  more  certain  as  pupils 
grow  older.  It  is  a  frequent  complaint  of  college  students  that  "  Pro- 
fessor So-and-so  gives  you  nothing  more  than  is  in  the  text-book." 
The  pupil  must  feel  that  he  is  getting  something  out  of  the  recitation 
period  itself. 

Testing,  therefore,  is  only  the  beginning  of  your  work  in  the  recita- 
tion. You  must  be  able  to  use  the  pupils'1  answers  and  reports  in  a 
further  development  of  the  lesson.  You  must  be  able  to  explain,  illus- 
trate, amplify,  and  finally  sum  up  the  results  of  their  work  and  your 
own.  The  ideal  recitation  is  in  fact  cooperative.  All  have  studied  a 
common  assignment  which  becomes  the  basis  of  discussion.  To  that 
discussion  each  pupil  brings  in  his  special  contribution,  the  bit  of  re- 
search or  of  memory  work  that  was  assigned  to  him,  and  for  which  he 
alone  is  responsible.  The  teacher,  too,  makes  his  contribution  to  the 
common  store,  and  with  tact  and  ingenuity  weaves  together  what  all 
have  brought  into  a  unified  development  of  the  truth.  At  the  end  the 
pupils  know  the  truth,  for  they  have  themselves  seen  it  grow  in  the 
discussion  of  the  hour  ;  and  they  feel  that  it  is  their  own,  for  each  has 
had  his  share  in  its  development.  The  recitation  has  been  social ; 
the  pupils  feel  the  glow  of  helpfulness,  and  go  home  with  an  added 
zest  to  prepare  to  do  their  part  on  the  coming  Sunday. 

Ideal !  Impracticable  !  some  of  you  are  doubtless  saying  to  your- 
selves. Such  a  conception  of  the  recitation  is  ideal ;  but  it  is  not  im- 
practicable. The  thing  has  been  done.  Classes  in  many  schools  are 
now  working  in  this  cooperative  way,  and  are  getting  results.  You 
can  realize  this  ideal  if  you  will  but  put  your  whole  heart  into  it,  and 
take  the  time  it  demands.  For  it  does  demand  work  on  the  part  of 
the  teacher.  Success  depends  primarily  on  two  things  :  the  care  with 
which  you.  plan  the  lesson  before  you  assign  it,  and  the  tact  with  which 
you  make  inadequate  and  even  partly  false  answers  contribute  to  the 
working  out  of  your  plan.  It  takes  patience,  foresight  and  ingenuity  ; 
but  it  is  worth  the  while. 

Two  remarks  must  be  added.  The  first  is  that  the  degree  to  which 
ouch  a  social  conception  of  the  recitation  can  be  realized  depends 
upon  the  age  of  the  pupils.     It  cannot  be  used   in  the  beginners' 


116  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

department,  and  not  much  in  the  primary  ;  but  we  have  already  seen 
that  story -telling  is  the  essential  method  of  these  departments.  But  it 
will  work  well  with  the  juniors,  and  better  throughout  adolescence. 
The  other  is  that  it  must  by  this  time  have  become  perfectly  plain  that 
the  ideal  recitation  is  no  mere  recitation  at  ail,  but  rather  a  discussion 
which  uses  the  results  of  preliminary  assignments,  and  of  which  re- 
citing is  therefore  a  part.  This  leads  us  to  the  consideration  of  the 
next  method. 

3.  The  discussion  method  develops  the  lesson  within  the  class 
period.  By  skillful  questions,  the  teacher  sets  the  pupil  to  thinking 
and  gets  him  to  express  his  thought,  then  uses  it  as  a  basis  for  further 
question  and  discussion.  The  truth  of  the  lesson  is  thus  gradually 
educed.  The  teacher  draws  the  pupil  out.  The  work  of  the  hour  is 
constructive  and,  in  the  primary  sense  of  the  word,  educative.* 

The  great  virtue  of  the  method  is  its  live  and  cooperative  character. 
There  is  nothing  mechanical  or  rigid  about  it.  Things  keep  moving. 
It  demands  the  activity  both  of  teacher  and  pupil.  The  class  goes 
away  with  no  ready-made  information  loosely  lodged  in  their  heads, 
but  with  ideas  of  their  own  making. 

But  this  method,  too,  has  its  difficulties  and  dangers  : 

( 1 )  It  is  a  mistake  to  attempt  to  educe  particular  facts  by  discussion. 
You  must  tell  them  to  the  pupil,  or  he  must  find  them  out  somewhere. 

Socrates'  method  of  questioning  and  discussion  has  long  been 
pointed  to  as  an  ideal.  It  is  true  that  he  was  a  master  at  stirring  his 
hearers  to  think  for  themselves.  We  can  learn  much  from  him  and 
his  questions.  But  there  is  a  great  difference  of  presupposition  be- 
tween Socrates'  method  and  our  own.  He  believed  that  all  truth 
dwelt  within  the  soul  of  the  pupil  himself.  He  held  that  knowledge 
is  in  reality  recollection.  He  thought  that  the  human  soul  had  lived 
before  coming  to  this  earth,  just  as  it  will  live  hereafter  ;  and  that  the 
truths  known  in  that  former  existence  had  left  their  print  upon  it. 
Truth  lies,  therefore,  implicit  within  one  ;  to  know  is  but  to  become 
clearly  conscious  of  one's  own  latent  memories.  The  duty  of  the 
teacher  is  to  help  bring  them  to  the  light.  By  questioning  and  discus- 
sion he  makes  the  pupil  think,  not  only  for  himself,  but  upon  that  which 
is  within  himself.  Socrates  meant  far  more  by  the  maxim,  ' '  Know 
thyself,"  than  we  do  when  we  quote  it. 

We  do  not  believe  in  this  doctrine.  Facts,  we  now  know,  come  to 
us  from  without.     Men  might  have  peered  forever  into  their  own 

*  The  word  "  educate  "  comes  from  the  I,atin  "  educo,"  which  was  derived  from 
"  e,"  meaning  "out,"  and  "duco,"  meaning  "  to  lead." 


METHODS  OF  TEACHING  117 

souls  and  might  have  discussed  with  one  another  until  doomsday, 
without  ever  learning  the  simple  fact  that  salt  is  made  of  sodium  and 
chlorine.  Someone  had  to  observe  that.  You  can  never  by  ques- 
tioning get  out  of  a  pupil  the  fact  that  Peter  was  a  fisherman,  or 
that  Paul  was  born  at  Tarsus,  unless  that  fact  has  first  been  put  into 
him. 

You  waste  time,  then,  in  attempting  to  pull  facts  out  of  the  class  that 
they  do  not  know,  or  to  create  such  knowledge  by  discussion.  The 
province  of  the  method  is  the  organization  of  facts.  You  are  to  make 
the  pupil  think  about  the  facts  of  the  lesson,  relate  them  to  one 
another,  draw  inferences  from  them  and  arrive  at  new  truths.  But  the 
facts  themselves  he  must  find  out,  either  in  his  previous  study,  or  by 
looking  them  up  as  you  ask  for  them,  or  by  having  others  tell  him. 
Any  other  method  than  previous  study,  moreover,  is  poor  economy. 
Every  pupil  should  come  with  the  main  tacts  of  the  lesson  already 
fixed  in  his  mind.  You  will  rapidly  question  the  class  upon  them  ; 
and  then  you  have  a  common  basis  upon  which  discussion  may  pro- 
ceed. You  are  ready  to  go  on,  to  inquire  into  matters  that  have 
escaped  notice,  to  round  out  the  pupil's  knowledge  and  to  develop  the 
truth  of  the  lesson. 

(2)  There  is  danger  that  the  pupils  will  not  study.  The  discussion 
method  can  get  along  without  previous  preparation  on  their  part. 
Each  can  look  up  his  facts  in  the  text-book  as  the  lesson  proceeds,  or 
catch  them  from  the  answers  of  someone  else.  But  the  result  is  that 
the  pupils  make  no  real  contribution  to  the  discussion,  and  lack  the 
basis  of  knowledge  which  they  need  to  comprehend  its  more  vital 
truths.  The  discussion  is  bound  to  degenerate.  The  class  flits  about 
on  the  surface  of  the  passage  for  the  day  ;  and  the  teacher  is  driven  to 
catch-penny  devices  of  entertainment. 

(3)  There  is  danger  of  wandering  from  the  point— this  even  if  the 
pupils  do  study.  Answers  that  are  not  quite  right  will  throw  you  off 
the  track  ;  questions  will  be  raised  about  remote  and  minor  issues  ;  or 
some  suggestive  remark  will  entice  you  to  spend  too  much  time  in  its 
development.  It  is  hard  to  keep  perspective.  Everything  seems  im- 
portant at  the  time.  In  teaching  a  class,  as  in  writing  a  book,  the 
biggest  problem  is  to  know  what  to  keep  out.  You  must  have  a  plan 
well  thought  out  before.  You  will  have  to  adapt  it,  of  course,  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  discussion.  You  may  even  have  to  leave  it.  But  it 
will  at  least  give  you  a  sense  of  direction  and  proportion. 

4.  The  best  method  is,  therefore,  a  combination  of  recitation  and 
discussion.     We  may  call  it  the  cooperative  method,  for  it  alone 


118  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

deserves  the  name.  No  recitation  is  genuinely  social  unless  the  results 
of  previous  study  are  used  in  live  discussion.  No  discussion  is  really 
cooperative  unless  the  pupil  is  prepared  to  do  his  part ;  and  this  is 
insured  only  by  definite  assignment. 

The  essential  characteristics  of  this  method  are  implied  in  what 
we  have  said  concerning  recitation  and  discussion.  We  may  sum 
them  up  briefly : 

(i)  The  teacher  keeps  a  week  ahead  of  the  class.  He  studies,  not 
only  the  lesson  for  the  coming  Sunday,  but  the  lesson  which  he  is 
then  to  assign  for  the  next.  He  blocks  out  carefully  the  course  which 
its  discussion  is  to  take,  and  finds  a  definite  piece  of  work  for  each 
pupil. 

(2)  After  the  main  teaching  period,  he  devotes  a  second  period  of 
five  or  ten  minutes  to  the  assignment  for  the  next  Sunday.  It  is  a  task 
that  demands  his  best  efforts.  The  way  that  he  uses  these  minutes 
determines  the  way  in  which  the  pupils  will  study  throughout  the 
week.  The  teaching  of  the  lesson  begins  right  here.  This  is  the 
introduction.  It  must  tell  enough  of  what  is  coming  to  make  the 
pupil  want  to  know  more,  and  to  set  him  to  work  intelligently.  Simply 
to  say,  "Next  Sunday  we  will  study  about  so-and-so,"  is  no  assign- 
ment at  all. 

(3)  On  the  next  Sunday,  he  develops  the  lesson  by  a  discussion,  in 
the  course  of  which  each  pupil  gets  called  upon,  in  one  way  or  another, 
for  the  results  of  his  work.  The  union  of  recitation  and  discussion  is 
organic,  not  mechanical.  The  pupil's  reports  are  made  a  vital  part  of 
the  development  of  the  lesson. 

(4)  The  motive  of  the  hour  is  social.  The  method  is  adapted  to 
pupils,  therefore,  who  have  reached  the  age  of  social  initiative — those 
of  the  junior  and  higher  departments. 

(5)  The  method  may  be  adapted  to  the  development  of  the  pupils  by 
changing  the  character  of  the  assignments.  In  the  lower  grades  only 
bits  of  memory  work  can  be  assigned  for  home  study  ;  then  definite 
questions  whose  answers  are  to  be  written  out,  and  manual  work  to 
be  done.  In  higher  grades  questions  will  be  assigned  for. oral,  rather 
than  written  answer  ;  then  topics  may  gradually  be  substituted  for 
questions.  The  topical  method  of  assignment  finally  may  be  adapted 
to  the  maturity  of  any  class,  by  broadening  the  topics  and  making  them 
demand  more  research. 

5.  With  adult  pupils  who  are  intellectually  mature,  the  research 
method  is  best.  The  teacher  becomes  simply  the  leader  of  a  group 
of  students  who  are  together  pursuing  an  investigation.     A  topic  is 


METHODS  OF  TEACHING  119 

assigned  to  each  pupil,  upon  which  he  is  to  find  out  all  he  can  and 
bring  back  a  report  to  the  class.  If  the  subject  .be  the  social  teachings 
of  Jesus,  the  pupil  is  not  given  a  text-book  wherein  they  are  all  set 
down  in  order,  ready  for  him  to  learn  in  the  shortest  possible  time, 
neither  is  he  told  them  by  means  of  a  lecture  or  discussion.  He  is 
rather  assigned  a  given  topic  and  sent  to  the  gospels  to  find  out  for 
himself  just  what  Jesus  said  about  it,  then  to  the  histories  and  com- 
mentaries to  learn  what  were  the  social  conditions  of  Jesus'  time  with 
respect  to  it.  He  comes  back  to  the  class  with  the  facts  he  has  dis- 
covered and  with  the  conclusions  he  draws  from  them,  and  himself 
leads  the  discussion  on  his  topic.  It  is  clear  that  this  is  simply  the 
cooperative  method  carried  to  its  highest  development.  Not  nearly 
all  adult  classes  can  use  it,  however.  It  demands  an  exceptionally 
strong  and  well-equipped  teacher  ;  and  it  can  be  used  only  with  pupils 
who  have  the  intellectual  ability  to  do  such  research  work  and  are 
willing  to  take  the  time  for  it. 

6.  In  the  lecture  method  the  teacher  does  all  the  talking.  Its 
virtues  are  :  ( i )  its  definite  and  systematic  presentation  of  the  lesson  ; 
(2)  its  economy  of  time  ;  (3)  its  attractiveness  to  many  busy  men  and 
women  who  do  not  have  the  time  or,  more  often,  the  inclination  to 
study  a  lesson  for  themselves.  Its  weakness  is,  of  course,  the  fact 
that  the  teacher  does  all  the  work  and  there  is  little  or  no  study  by  the 
pupil.  It  is  an  excellent  method  with  advanced  classes,  if  you  can- 
not get  them  to  work  in  a  better  way.  It  demands  the  very  best  of 
teachers,  and  one  who  is  a  direct  and  resourceful  public  speaker. 
Such  a  teacher  may  attract  large  numbers  of  men  and  women  to  the 
Sunday  school  who  would  not  enter  any  other  class. 

7.  Drill  lessons  and  review  lessons  have  a  place  in  the  work  of 
the  Sunday  school,  and  methods  of  their  own.  We  shall  think  of 
them  in  a  later  chapter. 


120  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

QUESTIONS 

1.  Why  is  there  no  one  method  of  teaching  that  one  may  always 
follow? 

2.  In  what  ways  may  a  teacher  use  a  story  ? 

3.  What  are  the  steps  involved  in  the  recitation  method  ?    With 
what  difficulties  does  it  confront  you  ? 

4.  How  shall  you  go  to  work  to  get  the  pupil  to  study  ? 

5.  How  shall  you  endeavor  to  retain  the  attention  and  interest  of  the 
pupil  throughout  the  recitation  period  ? 

6.  What  are  the  difficulties  and  dangers  of  the  discussion  method  ? 

7.  Describe  carefully  the  cooperative  method,  and  show  how  it  may 
be  adapted  to  the  maturity  of  the  pupil. 

8.  Describe  the  research  method.     What  are  its  advantages  and  its 
difficulties  ? 

9.  What  are  the  advantages  of  the  lecture  method  ?    What  its  dis- 
advantages ? 

10.  What  do  you  consider  the  best  method  in  general  for  each  de- 
partment of  the  Sunday  school  ?    Give  reasons  for  your  choice. 


LESSON  XIV 

The  Plan  of  the  Lesson 

The  discussion  of  methods  has  made  plain  how  much  depends  upon 
the  teacher's  own  preparation  of  the  lesson.  He  must  do  more  than 
master  it  for  himself ;  he  must  organize  his  material  for  teaching. 

I.  First  of  all,  the  teacher  must  get  the  meaning  of  the  lesson. 
He  is  set  to  teach  the  Bible,  not  what  men  have  thought  or  the  Church 
has  said.  No  comment  or  dogma  or  application  is  of  importance  as 
compared  with  what  the  writer  himself  actually  meant  to  say.  That  is 
fundamental.     It  must  come  first. 

Three  conditions  must  be  fulfilled  if  the  teacher  is  really  to  get  the 
meaning  of  the  lesson  : 

( i )  He  must  study  it  in  light  of  its  literary  form  and  its  relation  to 
the  book  from  which  it  is  taken.  Despite  the  unity  of  revelation 
that  runs  through  it  all,  the  Bible  is  not  one  book,  but  many.  It  is  a 
library  of  books.  It  contains  histories  and  biographies,  letters  and 
poems,  dramas  and  lyric  idyls,  the  writings  of  prophets  and  the  pithy 
sayings  of  wise  men.  We  should  study,  not  passages  only,  but  books. 
The  teacher  ought  always  to  read  the  whole  book  from  which  the 
lesson  is  taken,  with  a  view  to  its  literary  form  and  the  intent  of  the 
author.  Only  through  this  knowledge  of  the  whole  can  he  grasp  the 
full  meaning  of  the  part. 

(2)  He  must  study  it  in  light  of  the  historical  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  said  or  written.  Eternal  as  is  the  truth  of  God's 
revelation  in  the  Bible,  it  had  its  times  and  places.  The  prophets 
spake,  not  to  future  generations,  but  to  the  men  of  their  day.  They 
were  political  leaders  and  social  reformers,  revealing  God's  will  in  a 
nation's  crises.  St.  Paul  wrote  to  particular  churches  and  to  individual 
men,  and  because  he  had  something  specific  to  say  to  them.  The 
teacher  needs  both  knowledge  and  imagination.  He  must  be  able  in 
thought  to  live  in  Bible  times.  He  must  appreciate  the  situation.  He 
must  catch  the  point  of  view  of  the  man  who  wrote  the  words  he 
studies,  and  of  those  for  whom  they  were  written.  He  must  understand 
what  they  meant  then,  if  he  is  rightly  to  interpret  them  now. 

(3)  He  must  study  it  sympathetically.  The  men  who  wrote  the 
books  of  the  Bible  were  practical  men  ;  but  they  were  not  matter-of- 

(121) 


122  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

fact.  They  were  seers.  History  spoke  to  them  of  the  living  God. 
The  heavens  declared  to  them  His  glory,  and  the  firmament  showed ' 
His  handiwork.  Unless  the  teacher,  too,  has  the  vision  of  faith,  he 
will  not  comprehend.  Not  as  mere  literature  or  history  may  he  look 
upon  the  lesson  he  studies.  In  prayer  he  will  seek  the  truth  of  God. 
"Spiritual  sympathy  is  indispensable  for  the  sound  interpretation  of 
books  written  to  convey  spiritual  truth.  As  the  Bible  is  intended  to 
set  forth  religious  truth,  so  must  it  be  studied  in  a  religious  spirit."  * 

2.  The  teacher  must  choose  an  aim  for  the  teaching  of  the 
lesson.  The  ultimate  aim  is  always  the  same — the  spiritual  develop- 
ment of  the  pupil.  But  it  is  not  enough  to  purpose  this  in  a  general 
way  ;  he  must  plan  just  how  to  make  this  particular  lesson  work  toward 
that  end. 

(i)  He  should  choose  a  single  aim  for  each  lesson.  Have  one  pur- 
pose, one  central  thought ;  and  stick  to  it.  Some  teachers  go  at  a  les- 
son piece-meal.  They  have  a  pupil  read  a  verse  ;  then  ask,  "Now, 
what  do  we  learn  from  that?"  There  follows  a  discussion  of  the 
spiritual  truth  supposed  to  be  contained  in  that  verse,  and  its  applica- 
tion to  life  ;  then  the  next  verse  is  taken  up  in  the  same  way,  and  so 
on  to  the  end.  This  is  not  teaching  a  lesson  ;  it  is  rather  a  mulling 
over  of  as  many  lessons  as  there  are  verses  in  the  assignment  for  the 
day.  The  unity  of  the  passage  is  lost.  It  is  treated  as  a  mere  collec- 
tion of  separate  texts.  Each  stands  alone  and  is  made  to  carry  its 
own  lesson. 

Such  a  procedure  is  wrong,  first,  because  it  embodies  a  false  concep- 
tion of  the  Bible.  The  Bible  is  not  a  mere  collection  of  texts.  Its 
books  are  coherent.  There  is  a  connection  of  events  in  the  history  it 
records.  Its  letters  are  such  as  sensible  men  write,  with  a  beginning, 
a  middle  and  an  end.  Its  prophecies  contain,  not  the  scattered  and 
enigmatic  oracles  of  soothsayers,  but  the  sane  and  sober  vision  of 
practical  men  who  saw  life  no  less  reasonably  because  they  saw  it  in  a 
divine  light.  If  the  teacher,  in  fact,  has  fulfilled  the  conditions  set 
down  above,  and  has  gotten  the  actual  meaning  of  the  lesson,  he  will 
not  think  of  teaching  in  this  scattered  way.  The  passage  will  have  a 
point  for  him,  and  he  will  direct  his  teaching  toward  making  that  point 
clear  to  his  pupils. 

Such  a  procedure  is  wrong,  again,  because  it  is  not  good  teaching. 
It  lacks  unity  and  force.  The  pupil  carries  away  nothing  just  because 
too  much  has  been  given.  He  does  not  get  the  point  because  confused 
by  too  many  points.     Do  not  use  every  thought  that  the  lesson  sug- 

*  Burton  and  Mathews  :  "  Principles  and  Ideals  for  the  Sunday  School,"  p.  24. 


THE  PLAN  OF  THE  LESSON  123 

gests.  Pick  out  only  what  you  need  to  help  develop  the  main  theme. 
Not  "Is  this  thought  good?"  but  "Will  it  help  my  pupils  to  grasp 
the  point  of  the  day's  lesson  ? "  must  be  the  criterion. 

( 2 )  Not  every  lesson  need  aim  directly  at  the  formulation  of  some 
moral  or  spiritual  truth.  There  are  teachers  who  have  learned  not  to 
try  to  squeeze  a  spiritual  application  out  of  every  verse,  who  yet 
attempt  to  get  one  out  of  every  lesson.  But  the  fact  that  every  lesson 
can  yield  such  a  conclusion  does  not  prove  that  it  ought.  Nor  does 
the  fact  that  our  general  aim  is  spiritual  imply  that  each  single  pas- 
sage should  be  studied  with  reference  to  its  separate  spiritual  message. 

Such  a  procedure  may,  in  fact,  hinder  the  fullest  realization,  of  our 
ultimate  aim.  It  is  yet  a  piece-meal  method  of  studying  the  Bible,  less 
objectionable  than  the  verse-by-verse  method  only  because  the  pieces 
are  not  quite  so  tiny.  It  conveys  no  idea  of  the  continuity  of  events  or 
of  the  onward  movement  of  the  Spirit  in  the  minds  of  men.  And  it 
begets  within  the  pupil  a  habit  of  mind  which  will  keep  him  from 
looking  beyond  the  single  lesson  for  the  truth.  He  will  not  organize 
rightly  what  he  learns.  He  will  not  grasp  the  great  things  of  God's 
teaching.  He  will  study  the  Bible  in  cross-section  and  miss  the  per- 
spective of  a  third  dimension. 

Some  lessons  are  but  links  in  a  chain,  items  in  the  development  of 
a  truth  so  great  that  many  lessons  are  needed  to  bring  it  out.  Our 
immediate  aim  in  such  a  lesson  is  intellectual  rather  than  moral  or 
spiritual.  We  seek,  not  to  jump  at  applications,  but  to  prepare  for 
other  lessons  and  to  organize  the  data  from  which  the  spiritual  conclu- 
sion will  ultimately  be  drawn.  The  teacher  ought  squarely  to  face 
the  issue  :  "  Is  this  lesson  one  for  conclusion  and  application,  or  for 
preparation  and  organization  ?  Is  it  complete  in  itself,  or  a  part  with 
other  lessons  of  a  larger  whole  ?  Shall  I  finish  it  off  at  the  end  of  the 
period  and  start  again  next  Sunday,  or  shall  I  make  it  point  on  to  the 
coming  lesson  and  remain  incomplete  without  it?  " 

(3)  He  should  aim  to  present,  as  simply  and  directly  as  possible,  the 
meaning  of  the  Bible  passage  itself  This  is  implied  in  all  that  we 
have  said.  It  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  whole  matter.  Having 
himself  gotten  the  actual  meaning  of  the  Bible  writer,  it  is  the  teach- 
er's business  to  make  the  pupil  see  that  meaning  as  he  does.  His 
work  is  expository.  The  lesson  should  have  a  single  aim,  not  because 
one  may  be  chosen  at  random,  but  because  the  writer  had  a  single 
aim.  He  wrote  the  passage  because  he  had  a  point  to  make.  And 
not  every  lesson  need  aim  directly  at  the  formulation  of  a  moral  or 
spiritual  truth,  just  because  his  point  in  writing  was  not  always  such. 


124  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

It  is  the  vice  of  much  Sunday  school  teaching  of  our  time  to  wander 
far  from  this  expository  ideal.  It  does  not  draw  the  central  thought 
of  the  lesson  from  the  Bible  itself,  but  reads  into  the  Bible  one 
brought  from  without.  Just  as  some  preachers  first  write  their  ser- 
mon, then  hunt  for  a  text  to  serve  as  a  point  of  attachment  to  the 
Word  of  God  and  certificate  of  authority,  so  some  teachers  seize 
upon  any  attractive  "application"  that  presents  itself,  however 
remote  it  may  be  from  the  actual  intent  and  meaning  of  the  passage, 
and  make  the  whole  lesson  work  toward  it.  They  have  a  single  aim, 
but  it  is  the  wrong  one.  They  are  not  teaching  the  Bible  ;  they  are 
using  it  simply  for  illustration  and  as  a  sort  of  external  authority. 

3.  The  teacher  must  lay  out  a  plan  for  the  teaching  of  the  les- 
son. He  dare  not  rely  upon  the  inspiration  of  the  moment.  For 
sake  of  economy  of  time  and  definiteness  of  presentation,  as  well  as 
to  insure  the  interest  and  cooperation  of  the  class,  he  must  organize 
his  material  beforehand  and  plan  the  steps  to  be  taken  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  theme. 

4.  The  Herbartian  plan  of  the  lesson  has  become  traditional.*  It 
contains  five  formal  steps : 

( 1 )  Preparation.  The  lesson  begins  by  getting  the  pupil  ready  for 
the  truth  which  he  is  to  learn.  The  teacher  calls  up  in  his  mind  what- 
ever he  may  already  know  about  it  or  related  matters,  that  he  may 
feel  a  need  of  further  knowledge,  and  that  those  ideas  may  be  upper- 
most which  will  enable  him  rightly  to  comprehend  and  assimilate  it. 

(2)  Presentation.  Then  comes  the  presentation  of  the  lesson 
material.  The  teacher  imparts  the  particular  facts  from  which  the 
new  truth  is  to  be  learned. 

(3)  Association.  This  step  is  often  called  comparison  and  abstrac- 
tion. It  is  a  working  over  of  the  lesson  material.  The  facts  pre- 
sented are  compared  with  one  another,  and  points  of  likeness  and 
difference  are  made  clear.  The  teacher  inquires  into  their  relations 
to  one  another  and  the  pupil  is  made  to  see  the  common  factor  that 
runs  through  them  all,  or  the  links  of  time  and  place,  cause  and  effect, 
reason  angl  consequence,  that  bind  them  together  into  a. coherent 
whole.  If  the  previous  step  is  one  of  perception,  this  is  one  of  rea- 
soning. Presentation  seeks  to  make  the  pupil  see  facts  ;  association, 
to  understand  their  relations. 

(4)  Generalization.     The  new  truth   embodied  in  the  facts  is  f  Gr- 
ille German  philosopher  Herbart  (1776-1841)  was  the  first  to  make  a  scientific 

study  of  the  process  of  education  itself.     His  followers  '.carried  on  his  work,  and 
the  Herbartian  pedagogy  has  had  a  wide  influence.     For  a  detailed  treatment  of 


THE  PLAN  OF  THE  LESSON  125 

mulated   in  a  definite   and   compact  statement.     The   conclusion   is 
drawn. 

(5)  Application.  Finally,  the  truth  is  used.  The  pupil  is  set  to 
apply  the  principle  or  definition  or  rule  which  he  formulated  in  the 
fourth  step,  to  new  situations.  Since  it  is  true,  he  is  asked  what  would 
happen  under  such  and  such  circumstances,  different  from  any  that 
had  been  used  in  its  presentation. 

"These  formal  steps  of  the  recitation  have  a  universal  application," 
says  Rein.*  But  it  is  a  question  how  far  they  may  be  applied  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Sunday  school  lesson.  If  we  use  the  plan  at  all,  it  must 
be  in  spirit  rather  than  in  letter.  The  teacher  would  fail  miserably 
who  would  divide  the  recitation  period  into  five  parts  and  attempt  to 
fit  this  framework  upon  every  lesson.  Yet  it  is  in  a  sense  true  that 
we  must  each  day  prepare  the  pupil's  mind  for  the  truth,  present  it 
clearly,  think  out  its  parts  and  relations,  formulate  and  apply  it. 

The  fact  is  that  these  are  not  the  natural  steps  of  every  lesson, 
as  Rein  thinks.  They  are  the  steps  of  an  inductive  lesson — one 
wherein  the  pupil  is  led  to  infer  a  general  truth  from  a  number  of 
particular  instances.  If  the  aim  of  a  public  school  teacher  be,  for 
example,  to  teach  to  children  the  meaning  of  the  word  "although," 
after  a  brief  preparation  she  would  present  a  number  of  sentences 
containing  the  word,  then  lead  the  class  to  compare  them  and  to  pick 
out  the  single  idea  that  is  common  to  all.  This  idea,  then,  they 
wou\d  formulate  in  a  definition  of  the  word  "  although,"  or  a  rule  for 
its  use  ;  and  finally  they  would  be  set  to  work  to  use  it  for  themselves 
in  new  sentences. 

Many  Sunday  school  lessons  are  inductive,  but  not  nearly  all.  The 
plan  may  well  be  followed  with  a  research  class,  for  example,  study- 
ing such  a  subject  as  the  Messianic  ideas  of  the  prophets  ;  or  with  an 
elementary  class,  to  make  plain  God's  love  and  care  as  shown  in 
manifold  ways  in  nature  and  in  His  dealings  with  His  children.  It  is 
the  best  method  for  a  review  which  is  to  bring  together  and  formulate 
the  results  of  a  group  of  lessons  upon  a  common  theme.  In  these  and 
like  cases  there  must  be  explicit  comparison  of  a  number  of  presented 
facts  and  generalization  from  them. 

But  there  are  other  lessons  which  cannot  well  take  this  form.  Some 
aim  simply  at  the  connected  presentation  of  historical  facts  or  at  an 

the    formal    steps,  see    De    Garmo's    "  Essentials    of    Method,"    or    McMurry's 
"  Method  of  the  Recitation."     Bagley's  treatment  is  brief,  but  clear  and  to  the 
point — "The  Educative  Process,"  pp.  284-304. 
*  Rein  :  "  Outline  of  Pedagogics,"  p.  187. 


126  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

exposition  of  the  teaching  of  some  man  or  book.  Some,  too,  that  aim 
directly  at  the  formulation  of  a  moral  or  spiritual  truth,  develop  it  by 
interpretation  of  a  single  instance  rather  than  by  generalization  from 
many.  Jesus  often  used  a  single  story  to  bring  out  the  truth.  Ideals, 
in  fact,  are  never  mere  inductions.  They  must  appeal  to  that  which 
is  within  one. 

It  is  thus  impossible  to  lay  out  a  general  sch,eme  that  will  fit  all 
lessons.  The  plan  must  vary  with  the  aim  and  the  material.  At  least 
three  parts,  however,  every  lesson^should  have— preparation,  presen- 
tation and  conclusion. 

5.  Preparation.  A  great  deal  depends  upon  the  way  that  you 
begin  a  lesson.  And  it  is  no  easy  task  to  begin  rightly.  There  must 
be  more  than  an  introduction  ;  there  must  be  a  real  preparation  for 
what  is  to  follow.  The  aim  of  this  first  part  is  threefold  :  ( 1)  to  bring 
up  within  the  pupil's  mind  such  ideas  as  he  may  already  possess  con- 
cerning the  theme  to  be  treated  ;  (2)  to  arouse  his  interest  and  give 
him  a  motive  to  seek  further  knowledge  ;  (3)  to  set  a  definite  subject 
for  the  work  of  the  day. 

(1)  You  must  begin  with  the  pupil's  own  ideas.  This  follows  from 
the  principle  of  apperception.  The  pupil  will  understand  the  lesson 
in  terms  drawn  from  his  own  experience.  You  cannot  help  that.  It 
is  the  only  way  that  he  can  understand  at  all.  It  is  your  business, 
then,  to  call  up  within  his  mind  such  items  of  his  previous  knowledge 
as  may  enable  him  rightly  to  comprehend  it. 

It  does  not  matter  where  these  ideas  may  have  come  from,  pro- 
vided they  are  his  own  and  are  really  to  the  point.  You  must  not  in- 
troduce new  material  here.  You  may  revive  his  memories  of  former 
lessons,  or  call  up  things  he  has  read,  or  remind  him  of  concrete  experi- 
ences that  he  has  had.  In  any  case  the  one  great  question  is — Is  this 
idea  one  that  will  really  help  him  to  understand  the  lesson  as  he  ought 
to  understand  it  ?  Some  introductions  arouse  interest  enough,  but 
not  in  the  point  of  the  lesson  ;  they  call  up  vivid  ideas,  but  such  as 
distract  the  pupil's  attention  and  distort  his  final  comprehension  of 
the  truth.     They  are  introductions,  but  in  no  sense  preparations. 

( 2 )  You  must  arouse  the  pupil's  interest.  You  must  make  him  zvant 
to  know  the  truth  you  are  going  to  teach.  The  preparation  ' '  should 
show  the  need  oi  the  new  material  from  the  pupil's  standpoint."* 

You  must  take  account,  therefore,  not  only  of  the  pupil's  previous 

*Bagley  :  "  The  Educative  Process,"  p.  291.  The  simple  plan  which  we  are  now 
discussing  makes  preparation  include  what  Bagley  calls  the  sub-step  "  statement 
of  the  aim." 


THE  PLAN  OF  THE  LESSON  127 

ideas,  but  of  his  attitude  toward  them.  You  must  bring  up  such  as 
have  life  in  them  and  worth  in  his  eyes.  By  tactful  remark  or  pointed 
question  you  will  show  him  their  incompleteness.  You  will  awaken 
within  him  a  sense  of  need.  You  will  make  him  conscious  of  a  gap 
in  his  knowledge,  and  get  him  to  feel  that  it  is  worth  filling  up. 

This  is  what  Du  Bois  has  so  finely  called  "finding  the  point  of  con- 
tact. ' '  *  The  preparation  must  succeed  in  bringing  together  the  pupif  s 
interests  on  the  one  hand  and  the  point  of  the  lesson  on  the  other.  It 
fails  if  it  deals  with  either  alone.  There  are  introductions  which  work 
up  logically  enough  to  the  truth  of  the  lesson,  but  do  not  direct  toward 
it  the  pupil's  active  interest;  just  as  there  are  others  which  awaken 
interest,  but  in  something  else  than  the  lesson  point.  If  the  pupils  are 
interested  enough  in  what  they  have  been  learning  and  the  lessons 
have  historical  or  logical  continuity,  the  ideal  preparation  may  be  a 
brief  review.  But  more  often  you  must  set  out  from  some  concrete 
experience.  And  there  are  times,  be  it  admitted,  when  all  rules  fail ; 
and  you  will  be  driven  to  use  anything  to  get  the  attention  of  the  class. 

(3)  You  must  set  a  definite  subject  for  the  lesson.  This  is  the  con- 
clusion of  the  preparation  and  the  transition  to  presentation.  It  gives 
form  to  the  pupil's  sense  of  need,  and  direction  to  his  interest.  It 
centers  attention  upon  the  thing  to  be  learned. 

The  subject  of  the  lesson  is  not  the  same  as  the  aim.  "When  we 
face  the  child  who  has  wandered  from  the  point,  it  seems  easier  to  ask, 
1  What  are  we  talking  about? '  than  to  ask,  'What  is  the  aim  of  our 
talk?  '  "  f  Moreover,  the  aim  that  we  have  formulated  for  ourselves 
may  not  appeal  to  the  pupil  immediately  or  at  all.  The  subject  must 
be  stated  from  his  standpoint,  not  from  ours.  It  should  be  brief  and 
attractive.  It  should  be  worth  remembering,  and  serve  as  a  clue  for 
the  subsequent  recall  of  the  lesson.  It  should,  therefore,  whenever 
possible,  contain  both  a  proper  name  and  the  lesson  event  or  a  charac- 
terization. "Abraham  willing  to  offer  Isaac,"  "  Joseph's  kindness  to 
his  brothers,"  "Joshua's  battle  against  five  kings,"  "Jeremiah,  the 
man  who  suffered  to  save  his  city" — are  examples  taken  at  random 
from  the  International  Graded  Lessons.  Such  titles  set  up  an  associa- 
tion between  the  lesson  story  and  the  name,  so  that  each  is  bound  to 
bring  up  the  other. 

The  method  of  the  preparation,  with  reference  to  its  first  two  aims, 
should  be  that  of  questions  and  answers.     It  must  enlist  the pupiPs 

*  Du  Bois  :  "The  Point  of  Contact  in  Teaching."     The   phrase  "point  of  con 
tact  "  was  used  by  Herbart  himself. 
t  Brown  :  "  How  to  Plan  a  L,essou,"  p.  27. 


128  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

activity,  bring  out  his  ideas  and  arouse  his  interest.  Sometimes  a 
good  story  may  come  in  well ;  but  it  should  not  be  used  alone  or  with 
mere  comment  by  the  teacher.  The  subject  should  be  stated,  how- 
ever, by  the  teacher — for  the  obvious  reason  that  the  pupil  cannot  be 
expected  to  formulate  a  subject  for  lesson  material  that  he  has  not  yet 
gotten. 

The  whole  part  should  be  brief  and  to  the  point.  Many  teachers 
take  entirely  too  long.  They  dull  the  edge  of  the  pupil's  interest 
before  they  reach  the  presentation.  It  is  always  easy  to  wander  from 
the  point  when  questions  are  asked  ;  and  especially  easy  when  the 
pupils  do  not  know  what  the  questions  are  leading  up  to,  as  is  the  case 
here. 

If  your  method  of  conducting  the  class  involves  the  giving  of  assign- 
ments, the  greater  part  of  the  preparation  must  come  on  the  Sunday 
preceding  the  discussion  of  the  lesson.  It  may  include,  too,  a  brief 
blocking  out  of  the  course  that  the  presentation  will  take,  that  each 
pupil  may  understand  just  what  he  is  to  do,  and  the  relation  of  his 
assignment  to  the  whole. 

6.  Presentation.  The  presentation  of  new  material  is  the  body 
of  the  lesson.  In  general,  it  should  occupy  at  least  two-thirds  of  the 
time.  We  need  not  discuss  it  here  in  detail.  The  preceding  chapter 
and  the  three  succeeding  deal  directly  with  methods  of  presentation. 

(i)  The  presentation  varies,  of  course,  with  the  general  methods 
of  conducting  the  class  discussed  in  the  last  chapter.  In  case  of  any 
method  involving  home  study  by  the  pupils,  a  part  of  the  presentation 
comes  from  the  text-book  and  from  their  use  of  the  Bible.  Each  pupil 
may  nave  his  share,  then,  in  the  class  presentation. 

(2)  Present  the  essential  facts  first.  Go  over  the  whole  lesson 
quickly,  touching  on  the  big  things.  Get  the  facts  clearly  and  in  per- 
spective. 

(3)  You  are  then  ready  for  the  discussion — working  over  the  facts, 
inquiring  into  their  relations  and  implications,  clearing  up  obscure 
points,  hearing  reports  from  pupils,  organizing  their  results,  and  all 
the  time  working  steadily  toward  a  fuller  comprehension  of  the  main 
point. 

(4)  You  will  use  whatever  illustrative  material  you  need  to  hold 
the  pupil's  interest  and  to  help  him  understand — object-teaching, 
manual  work,  correlation  with  previous  lessons  or  with  the  work  of 
the  public  schools,  stories,  pictures,  blackboard,  stereoscope,  and  the 
like.  We  shall  discuss  these  in  succeeding  chapters.  Just  one  cau- 
tion here.     Remember  the  carpenter's  rule  reported  by  Dr.  W.  M. 


THE  PLAN  OF  THE  LESSON  120 

Taylor:  "We   must  never  construct  ornament,   but  only  ornament 
construction."  * 

7.  Conclusion.  Intellectually,  the  conclusion  is  the  final  step  in 
the  organization  of  the  lesson  material ;  practically,  it  brings  home  an 
obligation. 

(1)  The  discussion  should  end  with  a  definite  summing  up  0/  results. 
The  pupil  should  be  led  to  look  back  over  the  lesson  and  to  formulate 
its  essential  point  in  a  compact  statement.  It  should  be  an  answer  to 
the  question  with  which  you  began  your  own  study  :  "  Just  what  did 
the  writer  himself  mean  to  say?"  If  you  have  taught  as  you  should, 
the  pupil's  conclusion  will  be  his  statement,  in  his  own  way,  of  the  same 
thought  that  you  chose  as  the  aim  of  the  lesson. 

(2)  When  the  lesson  is  o?ie  of  a  series,  the  conclusion  should  formu- 
late its  bearing  upon  what  went  before  and  what  is  to  come.  The  point 
of  the  lesson  may  be  in  itself  comparatively  unimportant,  yet  essential 
to  the  development  of  a  greater  truth.  It  may  be  that  the  only  good 
of  a  certain  lesson  is  to  supply  a  link-of  historical  connection  ;  yet  if  it 
really  succeeds  in  helping  to  make  the  history  of  the  Hebrew  people 
clear  and  coherent,  its  service  is  as  real  as  that  of  one  which  deals 
directly  with  some  great  spiritual  insight. 

(3)  These  two  elements  of  the  conclusion  are  intellectual ;  they 
deal  with  the  organization  of  ideas.  But  our  aim  is  practical  as  well. 
God's  truth  touches  the  conscience.  It  brings  us  face  to  face  with 
ideals. 

Sometimes  the  practical  conclusion  should  be  definitely  and  explicitly 
stated;  sometimes  not.  To  know  when  is  one  of  the  teacher's  most 
serious  problems.  There  is  need  here  of  tact  and  good  sense  as  well 
as  of  consecration.  We  shall  take  up  this  problem  when  we  come  to 
the  chapter  upon  the  spiritual  goal  of  our  work.  Enough  now  to  say 
that  there  are  two  reasons  why  a  teacher  may  make  a  mistake  who 
insists  upon  bringing  home  in  so  many  words  the  practical  bearing  of 
each  lesson  :  (a)  because  indirect  suggestion  is  often  more  potent  than 
direct  suggestion  ;  (b)  because  in  the  mind  of  the  pupil  such  a  state- 
ment of  obligation  may  substitute  our  own  authority  for  that  of  God's 
Word.  We  shall  discuss  these  reasons  later.  The  practical  aim  of 
our  work  dare  never  be  forgotten  ;  it  is  a  question  simply  of  method. 

(4)  The  pupil  should  make  the  conclusion  for  himself.  It  should  be 
his  own.  It  so  means  more,  both  to  you  and  to  him,  than  if  you  present 
a  conclusion  for  his  acceptance.  Of  course,  you  will  often  have  to 
correct  a  wrong  impression  and  help  to  reconstruct  a  poor  statement ; 

*  Hervey  :  "  Picture-Work,"  p.  30. 


130  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

but  the  right  of  summing  up  results  belongs  to  the  pupil.     Indeed,  he 
only  can  sum  up  the  real  results,  for  they  are  within  him. 

8.  Finally,  we  must  remember  that  no  plan  is  sacred.  Our  plans 
must  be  adaptable.  They  must  fit  the  materia}.  You  will  not  teach 
history  in  the  same  way  as  poetry  or  even  as  biography  ;  neither  will 
you  present  the  soul-stirring  sermons  of  the  prophets  as  you  would  the 
worldly  wisdom  of  a  collection  of  proverbs.  You  cannot  apply  the 
same  plan  to  letters  such  as  those  of  Paul  and  to  a  dramatic  dialogue 
like  the  book  of  Job.  They  must  fit  the  pupil.  What  may  be  an  ex- 
cellent form  for  a  junior  lesson  would  fall  flat  with  senior  pupils. 
They  must  be  fitted  to  the  exigencies  of  the  occasion.  The  discussion 
will  take  many  an  unexpected  turn.  Some  of  these  will  reveal  real 
needs.  No  class  can  have  life  that  is  held  too  rigidly  to  a  prearranged 
scheme. 

QUESTIONS 
i.  What  conditions  must  the  teacher's  study  fulfill  if  he  is  to  get 
the  real  meaning  of  the  lesson  ?    Give  reasons  for  each  of  them. 

2.  Why  should  the  teacher  choose  a  single  aim  for  each  lesson  ? 

3.  "  Not  every  lesson  need  aim  directly  at  the  formulation  of  some 
moral  or  spiritual  truth."     Why? 

4.  Why  must  the  teacher  lay  out  his  lesson  plan  beforehand  ?  Why 
is  it  not  enough,  without  this,  to  study  the  lesson  thoroughly  ? 

5.  Explain  the  steps  of  the  Herbartian  plan. 

6.  Why  is  the  Herbartian  plan  not  applicable  to  every  Sunday 
school  lesson  ? 

7.  Explain  clearly  what  you  understand  by  an  inductive  lesson. 

8.  What  three  parts  must  every  lesson  have  ? 

9.  What  is  the  threefold  aim  of  the  part  of  preparation  ?    Give  a 
reason  for  each  aim. 

10.  Discuss  the  method  of  the  part  of  preparation,  with  respect  to 
each  of  its  three  aims. 

11.  Why  should  the  essential  facts  of  the  whole  lesson  be  presented 
first,  and  the  detailed  discussion  follow  ? 

12.  What  should    the    conclusion    accomplish,   intellectually    and 
practically  ?    Why  should  the  pupil  draw  the  conclusion  for  himself  ? 


LESSON  XV 
The  Pupil  at  Work 

The  true  class,  we  have  seen,  is  cooperative.  The  teacher  will  not 
do  all  the  work.  He  will  enlist  the  activity  of  the  pupil.  In  this  les- 
son we  shall  think  of  the  pupil's  work.  What  can  the  teacher  get  his 
pupils  to  do  ? 

I.  Three  principles  underlie  the  work  of  the  pupil : 

(i)  There  is  no  learning  without  men  tat  activity  on  the  part  of  the 
pupil.  This  is  the  principle  of  self-activity,  already  familiar.  You  can- 
not think  for  your  pupil.  He  must  make  his  own  ideas.  The  point 
we  need  here  to  emphasize  is  that  learning  requires  mental  activity. 
The  pupil  must  think,  not  simply  do.  A  class  may  be  very  active,  yet 
learn  little.  They  may  answer  every  question — looking  it  up  in  their 
lesson  leaves — and  at  the  end  know  nothing.  They  may  make  beauti- 
ful maps  and  portfolios,  even  write  out  careful  and  correct  answers  in 
the  blank  spaces  after  the  questions  in  their  text-books  ;  yet  do  it  all  so 
unthinkingly  that  they  fail  to  lay  hold  of  the  truth.  You  must  arouse 
the  mind,  not  simply  mouth  and  hands. 

(2)  To  insure  definite  mental  activity,  the  pupil  must  in  some  way 
express  its  results.  This  is  one  meaning  of  the  oft-quoted  pedagog- 
ical maxim,  "No  impression  without  expression."  To  make  sure 
that  the  pupil  gets  the  truth,  you  should  have  him  express  it.  "We 
learn  by  doing."  We  never  really  know  a  thing  until  we  give  it  to 
someone  else.  You  experience  this  every  Sunday  that  you  teach. 
After  the  class  hour  is  over,  you  know  the  lesson  as  you  never  could 
know  it  before.  The  teaching  has  reacted  upon  yourself.  Thoughts 
that  before  were  vague  have  taken  shape  as  you  sought  to  express 
them  ;  your  mind  has  moved  with  sureness  of  purpose  ;  your  convic- 
tions are  aglow.  You  feel  that  you  would  like  to  teach  the  lesson  over 
again,  and  that  you  could  now  do  it  much  better. 

The  pupil's  expression  of  what  he  has  learned  is  thus  much  more 
than  a  mere  test.  It  is  not  simply  for  sake  of  letting  you  know  what 
he  has  gotten  and  what  he  has  failed  to  get.  The  expression  is  itselj 
a  means  of  impression.  It  helps  him  to  learn.  It  moves  his  mind  to 
act.  It  gives  him  a  motive  to  think.  It  impels  him  to  clear  up  his 
ideas  and  to  make  thoughts  definite  which  might  otherwise  remain 

(131) 


132  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

vague  and  formless.  The  expression  is  a  revelation  to  the  pupil  him- 
self of  just  what  he  really  does  know. 

We  often  hear  people  say,  "  I  know  that,  but  I  cannot  express  it" 
— meaning  that  they  cannot  put  it  into  words.  It  is  undoubtedly  true. 
We  all  know  many  more  things  than  we  can  put  into  words.  Words 
are  only  arbitrary  symbols  ;  language  is  but  one  of  many  forms  of  ex- 
pression. Much  of  our  thinking  is  in  mental  pictures  rather  than  in 
words.  We  express  ourselves  in  intonation,  gesture,  action,  as  well 
as  in  language.  Indeed,  the  real  meaning  of  an  idea  is  better  ex- 
pressed in  the  action  it  leads  to  than  the  form  of  words  that  it  calls  up. 
It  is  the  man  of  action  rather  than  the  man  of  words  that  we  should 
rely  upon  if  we  had  to  choose  between  them. 

Yet  it  is  language  that  makes  knowledge  socially  usable.  Thoughts 
that  we  cannot  put  into  words  may  be  our  own  inner  sustenance  ;  but 
they  can  be  shared  with  no  one  else.  We  may  apply  here  what  Paul 
said  to  the  people  of  Corinth  about  the  value  of  mystical  babbling  in 
"tongues"  :  "  He  that  speaketh  in  a  tongue  edifieth  himself ;  but  he 
that  prophesieth  edifieth  the  church.  ...  I  had  rather  speak  five 
words  with  my  understanding,  that  I  might  instruct  others  also,  than 
ten  thousand  words  in  a  tongue."*  If  one  cannot  express  in  wrords 
what  he  knows,  he  does  not  yet  know  it  in  the  way  that  he  ought. 
While  it  is  not  our  business  to  tell  everything  that  we  know,  we  ought 
to  know  everything  so  definitely  that  we  could  tell  it  if  there  were 
occasion. 

(3)  There  is  no  expression  zvithout  a  social  motive.  It  is  to  other 
persons  that  we  tell  things,  and  for  others  or  for  recognition  by  them 
that  we  do  what  we  do.  Without  them,  we  should  have  no  motive 
to  express  what  is  within  us.  We  do  not  speak  just  for  sake  of  speak- 
ing, or  write  merely  for  the  pleasure  of  feeling  a  thought  form  itself  at 
our  finger-tips  ;  we  speak  to  somebody  and  write ybr  some  reason.  So 
with  a  pupil.  Bid  him  simply  to  tell  what  he  knows,  and  you  will  dry 
up  the  springs  of  thought  and  speech  within  him.  He  has  no  vital 
motive.  But  arrange  a  social  situation  such  that  he  may  tell  it  to 
somebody  and  for  some  reason,  and  he  will  express  himself  in  a  natural 
and  spontaneous  way.  Public  school  teachers  have  found  that  the  girl 
whose  compositions  are  formal  and  stilted  may  yet  write  a  simple  and 
natural  letter  to  a  girl  in  another  town  ;  that  the  boy  who  cannot 
write  an  essay  worth  looking  at  may-  hand  in  an  excellent  article  for 
the  school  paper  ;  that  a  pupil  who  seems  tongue-tied  when  called 
on  to  recite  may  be  able  to  tell  to  another  pupil  the  very  thing  he 

*  1  Cor.  xiv.  4,  19. 


THE  PUPIL  AT  WORK  133 

could  not  in  class  find  words  for.  It  is  your  business  as  teacher  not 
merely  to  demand  expression  from  your  pupil,  but  to  furnish  motives 
and  material^  to  provide  social  situations  such  as  naturally  call  it 
forth. 

2.  In  the  beginners'  department  we  must  provide  for  and  use 
the  child's  physical  activity  and  play.  The  department  should 
have  a  separate  room,  if  possible  ;  if  not,  it  should  be  screened  off 
from  the  rest  of  the  school.  It  should  have  little  chairs  that  can  be 
arranged  in  a  circle  about  the  teacher.  The  program  of  the  hour 
should  be  informal,  the  instruction  periods  short.  Better  have  two 
short  periods  than  one  longer  one,  and  a  time  between  for  rest,  change 
of  position  and  physical  activity. 

The  use  of  physical  activity  and  play  in  the  Sunday  school  can  be 
objected  to  only  by  those  who  do  not  understand  children.  It  does 
not  mean  that  the  department  is  to  be  in  constant  turmoil,  each  pupil 
doing  what  he  pleases  and  moving  about  where  he  will,  while  the 
teacher  distractedly  tries  to  keep  all  busy.  It  does  not  mean  that  the 
atmosphere  of  reverence  and  worship  is  lost.  It  means  rather  that 
the  teacher  recognizes  that  there  is  sure  to  be  physical  activity,  for 
children  are  so  made  ;  and  plans  to  use  and  direct  it  and  so  confine  it 
within  proper  bounds,  instead  of  trying  to  repress  it  and  only  suc- 
ceeding in  spreading  it  over  the  whole  hour  in  form  of  mischievous 
interruption. 

Marches,  drills  and  motion  songs  and  plays  have  both  a  recreative 
and  an  educational  value  for  children  of  this  age.  They  may  be  used 
to  illustrate  and  impress  the  truth  of  the  lesson,  as  well  as  to  engage 
active  hands  and  feet  and  little  bodies  full  of  play.  And  it  is  often  wise 
to  use  them  just  for  rest  and  recreation.  After  five  minutes  of  such 
bodily  activity,  with  fresh  air,  the  children  are  ready  in  perfect  quiet 
to  give  eager  attention  to  the  lesson  story.  Care  must  be  taken,  of 
course,  not  to  lose  the  quiet  spirit  of  the  hour.  Jig-time  music  and 
violent  exercises  are  out  of  place.  There  is  no  need,  moreover,  of  a 
physical  material  for  play,  such  as  the  kindergarten  gives. 

The  little  child's  play,  we  have  seen,  is  imaginative  and  dramatic. 
You  need  nothing  more  than  simple  little  plays  that  enlist  at  once  the 
body  and  the  imagination.  Let  the  children  represent  trees  or  birds 
or  flowers,  snow  or  rain,  and  go  through  appropriate  motions  to  the 
accompaniment  of  piano  or  song.  A  little  child's  play  instinct  is  easily 
met.  It  demands  nothing  elaborate  or  boisterous.  The  one  require- 
ment is  that  you  satisfy  the  imagination.  You  must  enter  with  him 
into  the  land  of  make-believe. 


134  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

3.  In  the  primary  department,  the  work  of  the  pupil  centers 
about  his  reproduction  of  the  story.  If  the  lesson  story  has  been 
well  told,  nothing  will  give  the  children  greater  delight  than  to  repro- 
duce it  for  themselves.  And  nothing  can  be  of  more  educational 
value.  It  is  real  self-expression,  socially  motived.  It  makes  the  truth 
the  child's  own.  There  are  three  ways  in  which  the  children  may 
reproduce  the  story : 

(1)  Telling  it.  "It  is  such  fun  to  listen  to  a  good  story  that  chil- 
dren remember  it  without  effort,  and  later,  when  asked  if  they  can  tell 
it,  they  are  as  eager  to  try  as  if  it  were  a  personal  experience  which 
they  were  burning  to  impart.  Each  pupil  is  given  a  chance  to  try 
each  story,  at  some  time.  Then  that  one  which  each  has  told  espe- 
cially well  is  allotted  to  him  for  his  own  particular  story,  on  which  he 
has  an  especial  claim  thereafter.  It  is  surprising  to  note  how  indi- 
vidual and  distinctive  the  expression  of  voice  and  manner  becomes, 
after  a  short  time.  The  child  instinctively  emphasizes  the  points  which 
appeal  to  him,  and  the  element  of  fun  in  it  all  helps  bring  forgetfulness 
of  self."* 

This  is  an  account  of  story-telling  by  children  in  the  public  schools, 
where  the  interest  of  the  teacher  was  not  primarily  in  the  content  of 
the  story  itself,  but  in  the  development  of  the  child's  power  of  expres- 
sion. It  applies  as  well  to  the  work  of  the  Sunday  school  teacher, 
who  is  interested  in  having  the  child  lay  hold  of  the  truth  of  the  story. 
Let  not  the  word  "fun"  mislead  us.  The  fun  of  story-telling  is  not 
amiss  in  the  Sunday  school.  It  is  the  joy  of  the  creative  imagination, 
the  happiness  of  inwardly  seeing  and  feeling  what  one  tells  and  of 
putting  one's  whole  self  into  the  telling.  It  is  the  delight  of  making 
others  see  and  feel,  and  sharing  with  them  the  truth  that  seems  so  real. 
What  matter  if  the  story  is  old,  and  the  child  tells  it  time  after  time  in 
the  same  words,  and  often  with  the  very  inflections  that  the  teacher 
first  used?  That,  for  children,  only  adds  to  the  pleasure  of  the  telling. 
They  do  not  want  different  words.  They  like  to  recognize  the  old 
forms,  and  even  to  join  in  the  refrain  when  certain  striking  phrases  are 
reached.  It  is  a  blessed  boon  to  the  teacher — this  natural  love  of  repe- 
tition.    It  makes  easy  the  permanent  implanting  of  the  truth. 

(2)  Drawing.  Every  child  likes  to  draw,  and  every  child  should 
be  allowed  to.  It  is  not  that  we  hope  to  develop  artists,  but  simply 
that  drawing  is  a  natural  form  of  expression.  The  child  who  tries  to 
tell  a  story  in  a  picture  must  have  a  definite  and  clear  mental  picture. 

*  Bryant :  "How  to  Tell  Stories  to  Children,"  p.  112.     The  quotation  is  slightly 
abridged  by  the  omission  of  local  references. 


THE  PUPIL  AT  WORK  135 

"In  the  simplest  and  most  unconscious  way  possible,  the  small  artist 
is  developing  the  power  of  conceiving  and  holding  the  concrete  image 
of  an  idea  given,  the  power  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  arts  of  ex- 
pression." *  The  story  afterward  is  more  vivid  and  real  to  his  mental 
vision.  He  can  tell  it  better  in  words  just  because  he  has  tried  to  tell 
it  in  pictures. 

The  most  convenient  forms  of  drawing  for  the  Sunday  school  are  : 
(a)  Drawing  with  pencil  or  black  or  colored  crayons  upon  fairly  large 
sheets  of  paper.  "  No  tables  are  needed,  as  it  takes  less  time  and  is 
more  convenient  to  place  the  papers  in  the  seats  of  the  chairs,  and  let 
the  children  kneel  before  them  to  work. "  f  (^)  Drawing  upon  the 
blackboard.  Children  like  this,  for  the  novelty  of  going  to  the  board, 
and  for  the  prominence  it  gives  to  the  one  chosen  to  draw  a  picture 
for  the  class.  It  also  permits  cooperative  drawing — one  child  making 
part  of  a  picture  and  others  completing  it — which  engages  the  hearty 
interest  of  the  whole  class  if  you  do  not  have  it  too  often,  (c)  Cut- 
ting out  silhouettes  from  paper.  This  may  be  called  drawing  because 
it,  too,  is  outline  work.  Children  take  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  in  it, 
and  produce  far  better  illustrations  than  one  would  at  first  think. 

The  drawings  will  be  very  crude,  but  that  does  not  matter.  You 
are  not  teaching  drawing,  but  Bible  stories.  Do  not  waste  time  trying 
to  get  a  perfect  picture.  It  is  but  a  means  by  which  the  child  may  ex- 
press his  own  ideas  and  get  the  benefit  that  comes  from  such  expres- 
sion. Of  course,  in  so  far  as  the  drawing  reveals  a  misconception  of 
the  story,  you  will  correct  it,  just  as  you  would  one  revealed  in  the 
child's  telling  the  story.  You  will  take  care  never  to  suggest  a  draw- 
ing when  the  story  is  one  that  would  be  hard  for  a  child  to  illustrate,  or 
when  his  attempt  would  be  apt  to  lead  to  misconceptions. 

(3)  Playing  the  story.  Children  are  naturally  dramatic.  They 
take  keen  delight  in  acting  out  a  story.  It  is  the  spirit  of  make- 
believe  play.  Each  little  actor,  creating  his  own  part,  himself  lives 
in  the  story  and  expresses  in  the  most  natural  way  possible  its  mean- 
ing to  him.  He  has  the  most  concrete  of  social  motives  for  his  expres- 
sion of  the  truth,  for  he  feels  the  motive  that  the  one  in  the  story  him- 
self felt. 

Teachers  in  the  public  schools  are  just  beginning  to  understand  what 
an  instrument  is  afforded  them  by  this  natural  instinct  for  dramatic 
expression.     It  is  plain  how  it  lends  itself  to  the  teaching  of  reading 

*  Bryant  :  "  How  to  Tell  Stories  to  Children,"  p.  115. 

f  "International  Graded  Wessons  :  Beginners'  Teacher's  Text-Book,  First  Year, 
Part  I.,"  p.  24. 


136  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

and  composition  and  to  the  development  of  a  love  for  good  literature. 
The  class  is  never  ready  to  stop  with  the  first  impromptu  acting  out  of 
a  story  ;  they  want  to  try  again  and  improve  their  presentation.  Classes 
have  spent  several  months  of  earnest  work  in  writing  out  their  own 
dramatization  of  "  Rip  Van  Winkle  "  ;  and  it  has  given  a  new  motive 
to  all  their  school  work,  besides  bettering  their  reading  and  composi- 
tion and  helping  them  learn  a  lot  of  history  and  geography. 

The  Sunday  school  might  well  learn  something  here  from  the  ex- 
perience of  the  public  school.  There  is  no  reason  why  children 
should  not  act  out  Bible  stories  just  as  they  do  others.  There  is  no 
irreverence  in  the  thought,  provided  we  choose  such  stories  as  do  not 
necessitate  anyone's  acting  the  part  of  God  or  of  Jesus.  There  is  one 
use,  at  least,  for  such  dramatizations  that  would  be  a  great  improve- 
ment upon  the  present  practice  of  most  schools.  On  festival  occa- 
sions, instead  of  presenting  a  ready-made  cantata  or  a  "service"  full 
of  dance  music  and  bad  "  poetry,"  let  the  children  give  a  little  play  of 
their  own  composition,  the  result  of  several  months  of  work  upon  a 
suitable  Bible  story. 

The  first  of  these  forms  of  reproduction — the  child's  telling  the  story 
— is  obviously  the  most  usable.  It  never  loses  its  charm,  and  may  be 
used  with  any  story.  All  three  methods  may  be  used  in  the  beginners' 
department  as  well  as  the  primary,  to  the  degree  that  you  find  them, 
by  actual  experience,  to  be  adapted  to  the  particular  children  you  have 
to  teach. 

The  time  for  the  first  reproduction  of  a  story  is  on  the  Sunday  fol- 
lowing its  presentation  ;  and  after  that  it  may  be  retold  or  reacted  as 
often  as  seems  worth  while.  The  period  for  reproduction  should  be 
the  first  of  the  two  instruction  periods,  the  second  being  given  to  tell- 
ing the  new  story.  This  applies  as  well  to  the  beginners'  department 
as  to  the  primary.  In  each,  whatever  work  the  children  do  at  home 
throughout  the  week  should  be  about  the  story  told  on  the  previous 
Sunday  and  in  preparation  for  its  reproduction  ;  rather  than  in  antici- 
pation of  the  new  story  that  is  to  come.  In  this  respect  the  story 
method  of  teaching  differs  from  the  other  methods  which  we  have  dis- 
cussed. Its  home  work  comes  after  the  presentation  of  the  lesson 
story ;  they  involve  an  assignment  of  new  material  for  study,  in 
preparation  for  the  class  presentation. 

4.  We  shall  enlist  the  activity  of  junior  pupils  by  handwork. 
The  term  "  handwork  "  has  been  applied  rather  loosely  in  discussions 
of  Sunday  school  methods.  We  shall  understand  by  it  the  construc- 
tion by  the  pupil  of  some  object  or  record  which  shall  express  the  re- 


THE  PUPIL  AT  WORK  137 

sutts  of  his  study  in  a  more  or  less  permanent  way.  It  differs  from  the 
mere  activity  of  the  beginners'  department  in  that  it  gives  form  to  a 
physical  material,  and  from  the  drawing  of  the  primary  department 
in  that  it  aims  at  some  permanent  perfection  of  result.  It  is  more 
than  a  transient  means  of  expression  ;  it  aims  to  make  something 
worth  keeping.  There  are  as  many  sorts  of  handwork  as  there  are 
possible  things  for  a  pupil  to  make  in  connection  with  the  Sunday 
school  lessons.  We  may  sum  up  the  more  important  occupations  in 
five  great  classes  : 

(i)  Picture  work.  Drawing  pictures  illustrative  of  the  lessons,  or 
coloring  pictures  with  water-color  or  crayon  ;  collecting  pictures  from 
various  sources,  especially  those  of  the  great  masters  as  reproduced  in 
the  many  excellent  series  now  so  cheaply  available  ;  cutting  pictures 
out  and  pasting  them  in  a  portfolio  or  note-book,  either  as  a  simple 
collection  or  as  illustrations  for  a  written  text. 

(2)  Map  work.  Coloring  outline  maps  ;  locating  places  ;  tracing 
journeys  ;  drawing  maps  ;  modeling  relief  maps  in  sand,  clay  or  pulp  ; 
drawing  plans  of  cities  and  diagrams  of  buildings  ;  constructing  a  series 
of  maps  to  show  historical  and  political  changes  ;  and  the  like.  There 
is  room  here  for  a  great  variety  of  work,  and  it  can  be  made  of  absorb- 
ing interest. 

(3)  Written  work.  Text-books  filled  out,  portfolios  constructed,  or 
note-books  written  up.  They  may  contain  written  answers  to  ques- 
tions, copies  of  verses,  outlines  and  charts  ;  stories  and  narratives  ;  a 
life  of  Jesus  or  Paul,  or  a  record  of  their  travels ;  a  brief  history  of 
the  period  studied  ;  a  harmony  of  the  gospels  ;  collections  of  Bible 
poems  or  speeches  ;  and  the  like.  The  book  should  be  illustrated 
with  pictures  and  maps,  drawn  by  the  pupil  himself  or  pasted  in  ;  and 
when  finished  it  should  be  neatly  and  permanently  bound,  to  serve  as 
a  record  of  the  year's  work.  Such  books,  of  course,  may  be  of  all 
degrees  of  elaborateness. 

(4)  Object  work.  The  construction  of  objects  to  illustrate  the  les- 
sons, such  as  models  of  the  tabernacle  or  temple,  miniature  tents, 
houses,  carts,  furniture,  weapons,  etc.  The  girls  will  enjoy  making 
clothes  such  as  were  worn  in  Bible  times  and  dressing  dolls  in  them  ; 
the  boys  may  make  figures  of  clay  or  pulp  to  represent  characters  and 
scenes. 

(5)  Museum  work.  The  collection  of  articles  to  illustrate  the  les- 
sons, to  be  given  by  the  class  to  the  school  and  made  part  of  a  perma- 
nent museum,  available  for  use  by  future  classes.  They  may  secure 
relics  of  Bible  times  or  articles  from  the  Palestine  of  to-day — such  as 


138  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

coins,  garments,  weapons,  stones,  grain,  flowers.  Of  especial  useful- 
ness will  be  such  additions  as  they  can  make  to  the  school's  collection 
of  pictures,  lantern  slides  or  views  for  the  stereoscope. 

These  manual  methods  are  very  flexible.  You  must  adapt  the  work 
to  your  own  particular  situation.  You  must  put  to  yourself  at  least 
three  questions : 

(a)  What  sort  of  handwork  shall  we  try  to  do,  and  how  much  ?  Such 
work,  and  only  so  much,  as  is  needed  to  engage  the  pupil's  interest 
and  cooperation.  The  handwork  is  not  an  end  in  itself ;  it  is  but  a 
means  to  a  higher  end.  The  Sunday  school  does  not  exist  for  sake  of 
manual  training  ;  its  aim  is  spiritual.  Handwork  is  of  value  in  just  so 
far  as  it  helps  the  pupil  to  get  the  truth  he  needs  ;  it  becomes  a  hindrance 
if  it  keeps  him  from  lifting  his  soul  above  mere  things. 

(b)  Shall  the  handwork  be  done  in  the  class  or  at  home  ?  Wherever, 
by  actual  experience,  you  find  that  you  can  get  the  best  results.  It  is 
hard  to  get  pupils  to  do  the  work  at  home  with  any  regularity.  They 
are  busy  with  public  school  work  and  there  are  too  many  distractions. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  lesson  period  on  Sunday  is  too  short  for  any- 
thing more  than  the  discussion  of  the  lesson.  If  you  do  the  work  in 
class,  you  must  have  a  longer  period,  seat  the  children  about  a  table 
and  work  with  them,  not  for  them.  It  is  best,  but  not  necessary,  to 
have  a  separate  class-room.  There  is,  of  course,  a  third  possibility, 
which  may  be  combined  with  either  of  the  other  two.  The  class 
will  be  glad  now  and  then  to  meet  on  a  weekday  evening  for  sewing 
or  modeling  or  some  other  particularly  interesting  piece  of  work. 

(c)  Shall  the  handwork  be  dojie  before  or  after  the  preseiitation  of 
the  lesson.  It  depends  upon  the  maturity  of  the  pupils.  Younger 
children,  to  whom  the  lesson  must  be  presented  in  story  form,  will  do 
the  work  best  after  the  story  has  been  told.  Older  children  will  take 
more  interest  in  doing  work  that  looks  forward  to  a  coming  class  dis- 
cussion than  in  work  that  reviews  the  discussion  of  the  previous  Sun- 
day. They  want  to  find  out  things  for  themselves.  If  we  follow  the 
story  method,  then,  the  first  instruction  period  will  be  for  review  and 
for  handwork  or  reports  upon  handwork  done  at  home ;  the  second 
will  be  given  to  the  new  story.  If  we  follow  other  methods,  the  first 
period  will  be  given  to  discussion  of  the  lesson  for  the  day,  using  the 
results  of  home  study  and  handwork,  or  actually  doing  the  work  ;  the 
second,  generally  shorter,  will  be  devoted  to  assignment  and  prepara- 
tion for  the  lesson  of  the  coming  week.* 

*  A  concrete  account,  with  illustrations,  of  two  manual  courses  that  have  stood 
the  test  of  practical  service,  is  found  in  the  Third  Report  of  the  Committee  on 


THE  PUPIL  AT  WORK  139 

5.  Memory  work  should  have  an  increasing  place  in  the  three 
lower  departments,  culminating  in  the  junior.  The  beginners 
may  learn  little  Bible  verses  ;  the  primary  pupils  will  memorize  longer 
verses  and  hymns.  The  juniors  are  in  the  "golden  memory  period." 
They  should  store  the  mind  with  such  Bible  passages  and  religious 
forms  as  they  ought  to  remember  word  for  word  i?i  after  life. 

(1)  Memory  work  requires  actual  class  drill.  It  is  not  enough  to 
' '  hear  the  children  say  ' '  the  verses  they  are  supposed  to  have  learned 
at  home,  and  help  them  out  when  they  stumble.  You  must  squarely 
face  the  fact  that  most  children  will  not  learn  their  verses  at  home. 
You  must  teach  them  yourself.  You  must  by  drill  make  them  mem- 
orize what  they  ought. 

(2)  Memory  drill  depends  upo?i  the  law  of  habit.  Two  conditions 
must  be  fulfilled  :  (a)  the  pupil  must  put  his  whole  attention  upon 
the  material  to  be  learned,  apprehending  it  clearly  and  distinctly ; 
(b)  there  must  be  sufficient  repetition  to  fix  it. 

(3)  The  time  for  drill  should  be  early  in  the  hour,  before  the  pupil 
has  begun  to  tire  and  while  his  power  of  attention  is  unjaded.  It  is 
a  mistake  to  assume,  as  many  teachers  do,  that  memory  work,  being 
mechanical,  can  be  done  at  any  time.  It  demands  the  most  favorable 
conditions.     Teacher  and  pupils  should  be  at  their  best. 

(4)  You  must  make  sure  that  the  pupil  understands  clearly  and 
defijiitely  just  what  he  is  to  learn.  Mere  concert  repetition  amounts  to 
little  ;  there  must  be  individual  drill  as  well.  If  the  children  can  read, 
the  material  to  be  learned  should  be  presented  to  their  eyes  as  well  as 
to  their  ears.  It  is  extreme  to  maintain  that  a  child  should  commit 
nothing  that  he  does  not  comprehend,  for  the  full  meaning  of  many 
precious  verses  can  be  realized  only  in  later  life.  Yet  we  seldom  err 
on  this  side.  And  certainly  a  child  should  never  memorize  anything 
that  he  cannot  understand  in  some  degree.  We  must  always  explain 
the  meaning  of  that  which  wre  ask  him  to  commit,  and  make  sure  that 
he  gets  it.  A  young  woman  who  is  now  a  missionary  in  the  far  east 
admitted  that  until  her  senior  year  in  college  she  thought  that  "  Eben- 
ezer"  meant  "voice,"  having  learned  in  early  childhood  the  hymn, 
"  Here  I  raise  mine  Ebenezer." 

(5)  Repetition  is  monotonous  work;  and  your  ingenuity  will  at 
times  be  taxed  to  hold  the  pupils  to  it.     In  general,  however,  they 

Graded  Bible  Schools,  published  by  the  Association  of  Congregational  Churches 
in  Illinois,  153  I,a  Salle  Street,  Chicago.  An  excellent  discussion  of  manual 
methods  is  found  in  Cope's  "The  Modern  .Sunday  School  in  Principle  and  Prac- 
tice."   A  modification  of  his  classification  is  used  in  this  chapter. 


140  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

like  it  better  than  you  do,  for  the  primitive  rhythmic  instinct  is  strong 
within  them.  The  best  way  to  hold  them  is  to  put  life  into  the  drill. 
Make  it  quick  and  snappy.  Children  like  a  brisk  mental  exercise.  In- 
troduce variety  by  alternating  concert  with  individual  recitations.  Let 
one  pupil  begin  a  verse  and  another  finish  it.  Get  competition  be- 
tween this  boy  and  that,  or  between  sections  of  the  class  ;  or  train  your 
class  for  competition  with  another.  Give  only  so  much  time  to  each 
pupil  called  on  ;  if  one  fails,  go  on  to  the  next,  and  later  help  him  indi- 
vidually. Do  not  waste  the  time  of  the  class  and  wear  out  their 
patience  by  dealing  too  long  with  individual  cases  of  stupidity  or  lack 
of  effort.  Take  them  separately  and  in  private.  The  old  system  of 
prizes  for  verses  learned  had  better  be  given  up. 

(6)  There  must  be  frequent  review.  Do  not  drop  a  verse  after  it 
has  been  learned.  Keep  calling  for  it  from  time  to  time.  It  not  only 
keeps  old  verses  fresh  in  the  memory  ;  it  helps  to  maintain  variety  and 
interest.  The  fact  that  review  Sunday  comes  at  the  end  of  the  quarter 
does  not  mean  that  reviews  may  be  let  go  until  then. 

6.  In  the  higher  departments  the  pupil  works  at  assigned  study. 
We  have  already  discussed  the  teacher's  problems  in  connection  with 
this.  We  shall  simply  remind  ourselves  of  three  counsels  then  brought 
out : 

( i )  Assign  a  specific  bit  of  study  to  each  pupil  and  hold  him  re- 
sponsible for  it.     It  will  generally  lead  him  to  study  the  whole  lesson. 

(2)  Suit  the  assignments  to  the  maturity  of  the  class.  Beginning 
with  bits  of  memory  work  or  handwork,  the  method  should  aim  to 
make  pupils  able  to  study  a  given  topic  intelligently  and  to  report  upon 
it  concisely. 

(3)  Show  your  pupils  how  to  study.  Take  a  class  period  now  and 
then  to  study  with  them,  instead  of  the  usual  discussion  ;  and  teach 
them  how  to  go  at  their  lessons.  Watch  your  opportunity  for  a  talk 
with  each  pupil  individually,  and  work  with  him  some  week  in  the 
preparation  of  his  topic,  to  show  him  how  you  would  do  it.  Most 
of  all,  begin  as  early  as  you  can  to  use  the  reference  library,  and  de- 
velop within  your  pupils  the  ability  to  handle  its  books  for  themselves. 
Show  them  how  to  use  Hastings'  Bible  Dictionary,  the  concordance, 
atlas,  histories  and  books  of  travel  and  exploration. 

Many  an  adolescent  loses  interest  in  the  work  of  the  Sunday  school 
because  it  seems  so  pinched  intellectually.  His  lesson  leaf  presents 
such  a  meager  lot  of  material,  he  thinks,  and  that  all  digested  for  him. 
You  can  do  such  a  boy  no  greater  service  than  to  bring  him  into  con- 
tact with  the  work  of  the  great  Bible  scholars.     Give  him  references  to 


THE  PUPIL  AT  WORK  141 

real  books  instead  of  text-books — to  Ramsey,  Edersheim,  Thompson, 
George  Adam  Smith,  Schiirer.  He  may  be  repelled  because  he  finds 
them  too  hard,  but  he  will  at  least  have  acquired  a  new  respect  for  the 
text-book  that  brings  him  the  results  of  such  work.  Best  of  all,  he 
may  refuse  to  be  daunted  by  something  hard,  and  acquire  a  permanent 
interest  in  the  problems  of  Biblical  interpretation. 

QUESTIONS 
i.  What  three  principles,  according  to  this  chapter,  underlie  the 
work  of  the  pupil  ? 

2.  Is  it  true  that  one  may  know  a  thing  without  being  able  to  express 
it  in  words  ?  Can  one  know  a  thing  without  being  able  to  express  it 
in  any  way  at  all  ?     Give  reasons  for  your  answers.  - 

3.  Why  must  we  provide  for  physical  activity  and  play  in  the  begin- 
ners' department  ?  What  sort  of  play  is  best  adapted  to  the  work  of 
the  Sunday  school  ? 

4.  Describe  the  three  ways  in  which  pupils  may  reproduce  the  les- 
son story.     Explain  some  of  the  difficulties  attending  each. 

5.  What  part  of  the  class  hour  should  be  given  to  story  reproduc- 
tion ?    Why  ? 

6.  What  do  you  understand  by  handwork  as  employed  by  the  Sun- 
day school  ? 

7.  What  are  the  five  great  sorts  of  handwork  available  for  the  Sun- 
day school  ?    Describe  an  example  of  each. 

8.  Should  handwork  be  done  in  the  class  or  at  home  ?  Give  rea- 
sons. 

9.  Should  handwork  be  done  before  or  after  the  presentation  of 
the  lesson  ?    Give  reasons. 

10.  What  sort  of  passages  and  formulas  should  the  pupil  commit  to 
memory  ? 

11.  Discuss  the  methods  of  the  teacher  in  memory  work.  What  part 
of  the  class  hour  should  he  devote  to  it  ?    Why  ? 

12.  What  ways  of  getting  pupils  to  study  are  mentioned  in  this  chap- 
ter? Explain  any  other  methods  you  know,  bringing  out  both  their 
advantages  and  disadvantages. 


LESSON  XVI 

Attention  and  Apperception  :  Principles 

How  to  engage  the  pupil's  attention  and  make  sure  that  he  gets  the 
meaning  we  want  him  to  get,  is  the  problem  of  this  chapter.* 

I.   PSYCHOLOGICAL  principles 

i.  The  nature  of  attention.  The  best  way  to  describe  attention 
is  by  a  figure  of  speech.  The  field  of  a  camera,  we  all  know, 
has  a  focus,  a  central  point  where  the  picture  is  perfectly  clear  and 
distinct.  Things  upon  the  margin  of  the  field  appear  blurred  and 
vaguely  outlined  in  proportion  to  their  distance  from  the  focus.  Just 
so  the  field  of  consciousness  has  a  focus  and  a  margin.  The  activity 
of  the  mind  always  centers  itself  about  some  one  thing  or  group  of 
things,  some  single  idea  or  thought.  It  is  the  object  of  attention. 
Something  else  may  take  its  place  in  the  fraction  of  a  second,  for 
thought  is  quick  ;  but  for  the  moment  it  stands  at  the  focus  and  other 
things  are  upon  the  margin.  It  is  clear  and  distinct  to  the  mental 
vision  ;  they  are  more  or  less  dim  and  blurred. 

We  are  always  paying  attention  to  something  or  other.  Attention  is 
a  constant  characteristic  of  the  mind's  action.  Every  moment  of  con- 
sciousness has  its  focus.  Not  to  give  attention  to  anything  would 
mean  to  be  unconscious. 

Attention  cannot  be  kept  long  upon  an  unchanging  object.  It  shifts 
rapidly.  "  Quick  as  thought "  is  a  proverb.  As  soon  as  a  thing  has  been 
brought  into  focus  and  has  been  clearly  and  distinctly  apprehended, 
the  mind  moves  on.  That  thing  is  now  known  ;  that  problem  is 
solved — now  what  next?  Try  to  keep  your  attention  upon  an  un- 
changing object — say  the  word  "  Lesson  "  at  the  top  of  this  page — and 
you  will  find  that  you  cannot,  except  by  constantly  having  new 
thoughts  about  it.  But  to  have  a  new  thought  is  to  change  the  object 
of  attention.  If  the  mental  object  changes — if  we  keep  looking  at  it 
from  new  points  of  view,  asking  new  questions  about  it,  relating  to  new 

*ln  connection  with  this  chapter,  the  class  should  review  what  is  said  on  atten- 
tion in  Lesson  X.,  Section  6  ;  and  on  apperception  in  Lesson  IV.,  Section  3  ;  Lesson 
XII.,  Section  3  ;  and  Lesson  XIV.,  Section  5. 

*         (142) 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  PRINCIPLEvS       143 

things — we  can  keep  the  attention  steadily  upon  the  most  wooden  and 
changeless  of  external  things. 

2.  There  are  two  kinds  of  attention — voluntary  and  spontane- 
ous. Attention  is  voluntary  when  we  keep  it  directed  upon  some  ob- 
ject by  an  act  of  will.  It  requires  effort.  We  are  more  or  less  con- 
scious of  a  split  of  impulses.  We  feel  the  pull  of  other  things  that 
claim  attention  ;  but  we  resist  them  and  hold  our  minds  to  the  chosen 
object.  Attrition  is  spontaneous  when  it  is  drawn  to  some  object 
naturally  and  without  effort.  While  tremendous  effort  may  be  put 
forth  under  stress  of  spontaneous  attention,  there  is  none  needed  to 
hold  the  attention  itself  upon  its  object.  We  are  hardly  conscious  of 
the  pull  of  other  things,  for  the  mind  is  being  given  to  the  strongest. 

( i )  /  roluntary  attention  is  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium.  It  can- 
not long  be  sustained  without  lapsing  into  spontaneous  attention. 
Either  the  mind  wanders  from  the  topic  set,  and  must  by  an  effort  be 
pulled  back  to  work  ;  or  we  get  interested  in  the  task  that  was  begun 
voluntarily,  and  further  attention  to  it  becomes  spontaneous. 

(2)  Spontaneous  attention  depends  upon  o tie's  interests.  A  man's 
interests,  moreover,  reflect  what  the  man  himself  is.  Interest  may  be 
best  defined  as  a  feeling  of  worth  that  accompanies  self-expression.  A 
thing  is  interesting  to  one  just  in  so  far  as  it  gives  him  a  chance  to  express 
what  is  within  him,  to  realize  in  action  his  instincts,  habits  and  ideas, 
and  to  press  toward  completion  what  he  has  begun.  Interests  may  be 
classed  as  native  or  acquired,  according  as  they  depend  chiefly  upon 
instincts  or  upon  habits  and  ideas.  Yet  most  human  interests  spring 
from  both  sources.  Instincts  get  set  into  habits,  overlaid  by  experi- 
ence and  transformed  by  reason  ;  yet  they  remain  at  the  heart  of  life's 
deepest  interests.  He  whose  interests  are  instinctive  merely  is  a  sav- 
age ;  but  he  who  has  no  other  than  acquired  tastes  is  a  fop. 

3.  Attention  is  apperceptive.  We  attend  to  things  that  we  may 
understand  them.  It  is  for  sake  of  getting  the  meaning  of  a  given 
sensation  or  idea  that  we  focus  the  activity  of  the  mind  upon  it.  At- 
tention is  an  assimilative  process.  It  brings  what  we  know  to  the  in- 
terpretation of  what  is  as  yet  unknown ;  it  arouses  that  which  is 
within  us  to  receive  what  comes  from  without  ;  it  throws  the  light  of 
experience  upon  the  new  problem  of  the  moment. 

Attention  is,  in  fact,  the  focal  point  where  past  and  present  meet  to 
determine  a  meaning.  A  repetition  of  the  old  and  familiar,  with  no 
new  element,  cannot  hold  the  attention  and  may  even  fail  to  arouse  it 
to  a  passing  look.  A  presentation  of  the  absolutely  new,  with  no  link 
of  connection  with  past  experience,  would  fail  just  as  completely,  for 


144  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

it  would  be  unintelligible.  Neither  the  old  alone  nor  the  new  alone 
can  engage  the  attention.  The  old  alone  is  flat  and  stale,  and  is  met 
mechanically  by  habit  ;  the  new  alone  is  meaningless.  But  when  we 
can  bring  the  past  to  bear  upon  the  present ;  when  we  can  see  the  old 
in  the  new  and  the  new  in  the  old,  the  new  giving  life  to  the  old  and 
the  old  giving  meaning  to  the  new — then  interest  awakens,  the  mind 
is  alert  and  attention  intent  upon  its  problem.  The  best  way  for  the 
teacher  to  get  and  hold  attention  is  to  fnlfitl  the  conditions  of  apper- 
ception. 

And  it  is  just  as  true  that  whatever  means  you  use  to  get  attention 
will  enter  vitally  into  the  pupil 's  apperception  of  the  truth  presented. 
He  must  make  his  ideas  for  himself,  we  have  said,  and  out  of  material 
from  within  himself.  The  meaning  a  new  truth  has  for  him  depends 
upon  the  old  ideas,  the  instincts  and  habits  that  he  brings  to  bear  upon 
it.  And  he  will  bring  to  its  interpretation  just  those  ideas,  instincts 
and  habits  that  you  arouse  within  him  as  you  seek  to  gain  his  atten- 
tion. We  might,  indeed,  compactly  restate  the  law  of  apperception  in 
these  terms  :  The  meaning  of  each  new  experie7ice  is  determined  by 
the  appeal  it  makes  upon  attention. 

II.     THE  TEACHER'S   PROBLEM 

4.  The  teacher  must  get  and  hold  the  attention  of  his  class.     It 

is  for  the  teacher  to  get  rather  than  for  the  class  to  give.  If  our  pupils 
would  only  pay  attention,  we  sometimes  think,  how  well  and  interest- 
ingly we  could  teach  !  But  that  is  to  begin  at  the  wrong  end.  If  we 
would  only  teach  as  we  ought,  they  would  pay  attention.  The  atten- 
tion of  a  class  depends  upon  the  teacher.  It  is  not  so  much  a  condi- 
tion as  a  result  of  good  teaching.  If  you  need  ask  for  attention, 
there  is  something  the  matter  with  you.  It  is  your  business  so  to 
teach  that  you  grip  the  minds  and  hold  the  interest  of  your  pupils. 

There  is  no  use  to  teach  without  attention.  The  pupil's  body  is  with 
you,  but  his  mind  is  not,  and  you  are  wasting  words.  Without  atten- 
tion you  can  do  nothing.  When  it  slips  away  your  first  concern  must 
be  to  get  it  back. 

It  is  positively  harmful  to  teach  without  attention.  Your  pupils  will 
go  away  with  ideas  distorted  and  garbled,  a  mixture  of  your  teaching 
and  their  own  fancies,  yet  will  think  that  they  have  gotten  the  truth. 
No  inattentive  pupil  feels  that  he  is  missing  anything.  He  gets  what 
is  worse  than  no  impression,  a  wrong  one.  Moreover,  attention,  like 
any  other  power  of  the  mind,  is  subject  to  the  iaw  of  habit.  If  you 
teach  without  it,  you  beget  within  your  pupils  the  habit  of  inattention. 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  PRINCIPLES         145 

Spiritually,  they  grow  to  think  lightly  of  sacred  things  ;   intellectually 
and  morally,  they  are  weakened. 

"  Teachers  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  formation  of  the 
intellectual  habits  which  will  cling  to  their  pupils  for  the  rest  of 
their  lives.  .  .  .  We  ought  all  to  feel  some  interest  in  the  sort  of 
mental  character  which  our  little  scholars  are  acquiring  during 
their  intercourse  with  us.  We  must  look  forward  to  the  time 
when  the  children  will  be  men  and  women,  and  consider  what 
sort  of  men  and  women  we  would  have  them  be.  We  cannot  help 
desiring  that  when,  hereafter,  they  read  a  book,  they  shall  read 
seriously  ;  that  when  they  hear  a  sermon,  they  shall  not  bring 
preoccupied  or  wandering  minds  to  what  they  hear  ;  that  as  they 
move  along  in  life,  they  shall  not  be  unobservant  triflers,  gazing 
in  helpless  vacancy  on  the  mere  surface  of  things,  but  shall  be 
able  to  fix  their  eyes  and  their  hearts  steadily  on  all  the  sources 
of  instruction  which  may  be  open  to  them.  If  they  are  ever  to 
do  this,  it  is  necessary  that  they  should  have  acquired  in  youth 
the  power  of  concentrating  their  attention.  This  power  is  the  one 
qualification  which  so  often  constitutes  the  main  difference  be- 
tween the  wise  and  the  foolish,  the  successful  and  the  unsuccess- 
ful men.  Attention  is  the  one  habit  of  the  mind  which,  perhaps 
more  than  any  other,  forms  a  safeguard  for  intellectual  progress, 
and  even,  under  the  divine  blessing,  for  moral  purity.  Now, 
every  time  a  child  comes  into  your  class,  this  habit  is  either 
strengthened  or  weakened.  Something  is  sure  to  be  done, 
while  the  children  are  with  you,  to  make  them  either  better  or 
worse  in  this  respect  for  the  whole  of  their  future  lives.  .  .  . 
Every  time  you  permit  disorder,  trifling  or  wandering  you  are 
helping  to  lower  and  vitiate  the  mental  character  of  your  pupils. 
You  are  encouraging  them  to  a  bad  habit.  You  are,  in  fact, 
doing  something  to  prevent  them  from  ever  becoming  thought- 
ful readers,  diligent  observers  and  earnest  listeners,  as  long  as 
they  live."  * 

5.  The  teacher  must  engage  the  interest  of  his  class.  There  are 
other  ways,  of  course,  of  getting  attention.  You  might  demand  it  or 
coax  for  it,  scare  it  into  pupils  or  cajole  it  out  of  them,  bribe  them  with 
rewards  or  appeal  to  their  respect  for  yourself.  But  attention  so  gotten 
is  unstable  and  of  little  worth.  It  cannot  be  long  sustained,  and  while 
it   does   last,  has   no   apperceptive   value.      These   are   but  external 

*  Fitch  :  "  The  Art  of  Securing  Attention,"  School  Bulletin  edition,  pp.  117-119. 

10 


1 46  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

means.  They  bear  no  relation  to  the  truth  you  teach.  You  must 
arouse  the  pupil's  interest  in  the  subject  itself ]  not  merely  in  pleasing 
you,  getting  rewards  or  avoiding  punishments.  You  ought  so  to  teach 
that  the  truth  may  make  its  own  appeal.  You  should  make  the  pupil 
"feel  that  the  subject  claims  attention  for  itself,  not  that  you  are 
claiming  it  for  the  subject."  * 

But  this  only  brings  us  to  the  real  problem  of  every  teacher. 
Granted  that  we  must  get  attention,  and  the  kind  of  attention  that 
springs  from  interest,  the  great  question  is — how?  It  is  no  easy 
thing  to  hold  the  interest  Of  a  class.  And  it  is  not  a  problem  that  can 
be  solved  once  for  all.     You  face  it  anew  each  Sunday. 

(i)  First  of  all,  remove  the  distractions.  Begin  your  effort  to  hold 
the  attention  and  interest  of  your  class,  by  eliminating  all  those  things 
that  would  be  apt  to  get  it  away  from  you.  You  are,  in  fact,  a  com- 
petitor for  the  attention  of  your  pupil.  You  must  contend  with  other 
things  for  it.  It  is  not  the  total  lack  of  attention  that  your  teaching 
must  combat  so  much  as  his  proneness  to  pay  attention  to  something 
else  that  is,  for  the  moment,  more  interesting.  Few  inattentive  pupils 
are  mentally  inert.  Their  minds  are  active,  but  in  the  wrong  direc- 
tion. They  are  busy  thinking  of  something,  but  it  is  not  what  you 
want  them  to  think  of.  The  wise  teacher,  therefore,  does  all  he  can 
to  weaken  the  competition  of  other  things.  He  removes  as  com- 
pletely as  possible  all  distracting  conditions. 

This  is  why,  ideally,  each  class  should  have  a  room  of  its  own.  It  is 
hard  to  hold  the  interest  and  attention  of  a  class  if  there  are  other 
classes  all  about  it  in  the  same  room,  each  with  its  own  buzz  of  discus- 
sion, and  some  with  the  inevitable  loud-mouthed  teacher  who  mistakes 
intensity  of  sound  for  forcefulness.  The  room  should  be  furnished  sim- 
ply and  comfortably,  and  for  the  use  of  the  class.  It  should  contain 
nothing  in  the  way  of  furniture,  pictures  or  paraphernalia  that  is  not  in 
line  with  the  work  you  expect  to  do.  This  does  not  mean  that  it  is  to 
be  bare  and  unattractive.  Pictures,  books,  maps,  tables  for  manual 
work,  have  their  rightful  place.  It  is  the  home  and  work-room  of  the 
class,  and  it  should  be  both  homelike  and  usable.  But  the  teacher  will 
rigidly  exclude  anything  that  has  no  connection  with  the  work  of  the 
class  and  might  distract  their  attention. 

The  teacher  will  see  to  it  that  the  physical  conditions  of  the  class- 
room are  favorable.  The  seats  should  be  comfortable,  the  heat  right, 
the  air  kept  fresh.  No  one  can  give  attention  when  fatigued  or  dulled 
by  bad  air.   We  must  be  at  our  best  physically  to  do  good  mental  work. 

*  Fitch  :  op.  cit.,  p.  89. 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION:  PRINCIPLES        147 

This  is  one  of  the  factors  that  ought  to  be  considered  when  the  hour  for 
the  Sunday  school  session  is  chosen.  A  teacher  may  be  attempting 
the  impossible  who  tries  to  interest  a  class  of  boys  who  are  getting 
hungry,  or  even  a  Bible  class  of  adults  who  have  just  listened  to  a  long 
sermon  and  meet  in  the  audience  room  vacated  by  the  congregation. 
A  great  deal  depends  upon  the  way  the  class  is  seated.  One  rule  is 
absolute  and  invariable,  the  teacher  ought  to  be  able  to  see  every  pupil. 
Seat  your  class  so  that  you  can.  Put  them  in  a  circle  about  you  if  you 
cannot  see  them  all  in  any  other  way.  Stand  while  you  teach  if  you 
cannot  see  all  from  your  chair.  However  you  do  it,  see  them.  Know 
everything  that  is  going  on.  Read  their  faces.  Learn  from  their  expres- 
sion who  is  paying  attention  and  who  is  not,  who  has  understood  your 
teaching  and  who  has  failed  to  grasp  it.  It  is  often  best  for  the  teacher 
to  determine,  not  simply  the  general  form  of  seating,  but  the  particular 
place  where  each  pupil  should  sit.  If  each  sits  where  he  pleases, 
those  are  apt  to  get  side  by  side  who  are  most  intimate,  and  there  is 
likely  to  be  more  talking,  inattention,  and  even  mischief,  than  if  you 
seated  the  class  according  to  a  plan  of  your  own — alphabetically,  let 
us  say.  You  need  not  fear  that  the  pupils  will  rebel,  if  only  you  go  at 
it  with  a  degree  of  common  sense.  It  must  not  be  as  punishment  for 
misbehavior,  either  of  individuals  or  of  the  class  as  a  whole.  Arrange 
them  at  the  beginning  of  the  year's  work.  Make  the  assignment  of 
seats  a  part  of  your  general  plan,  not  an  after-thought  or  a  corrective 
measure.  Let  the  class  feel  it  to  be  what  it  really  is,  an  item  of  routine 
that  makes  for  economy  and  efficiency. 

The  teacher's  own perso?iality  may  be  a  distraction.  Anything  that 
calls  attention  to  yourself  takes  it  away  from  the  subject.  Be  natural. 
Avoid  affectations  and  peculiarities.  Nervous  diffidence  and  over- 
weening self-confidence  are  equally  bad.  Mannerisms  of  speech  or 
gesture  may  spoil  a  lesson.  An  extreme  new  dress  or  hat  may  upset 
a  class  for  a  whole  period.  Remember  that  the  fact  that  a  pupil  has 
his  eyes  fixed  on  you  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  he  is  absorbed  in 
what  you  are  saying. 

"A  lady  told  me  that  one  day,  during  a  lesson,  she  was  de- 
-  lighted  at  having  captured  so  completely  the  attention  of  one  of 
her  young  charges.  He  did  not  remove  his  eyes  from  her  face  ; 
but  he  said  to  her  after  the  lesson  was  over,  '  I  looked  at  you  all 
the  time,  and  your  upper  jaw  did  not  move  once  ! '  That  was 
the  only  fact  that  he  had  taken  in."  * 

*  James  :  "  Talks  to  Teachers  on  Psychology,"  p.  93. 


148  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  vSERIES 

The  teacher  may  introduce  distractions  in  the  course  of  the  teaching 
itself.  To  reprimand  a  pupil  or  to  call  for  the  attention  of  one  whose 
mind  you  see  to  be  wandering,  is  simply  to  make  matters  worse.  You 
distract  the  class  as  a  whole,  and  instead  of  one  pupil  not  thinking  of 
the  lesson,  you  now  have  ten  or  twenty  to  win  back.  Teachers  who 
use  objects  to  illustrate  the  lesson  must  be  especially  careful.  Do 
not  bring  out  your  objects  too  soon.  They  only  distract  attention  if 
seen  before  they  are  actually  used.  And  do  not  use  them  at  all  unless 
you  are  perfectly  sure  that  they  will  work  in  just  the  way  you  plan. 
Stories  and  illustrations  are  to  be  avoided,  too,  that  do  not  clearly 
illustrate  or  that  are  suggestive  of  other  trains  of  thought  than  that  of 
the  lesson  itself. 

The  administrative  department  of  the  Sunday  school  ought  not  in 
any  way  interrupt  the  teaching.  The  officers  of  a  school  may  greatly 
hinder  the  effectiveness  of  its  work  if  they  go  about  their  duties  in 
such  a  way  as  to  attract  the  attention  of  pupils.  A  superintendent  may 
mean  well,  yet  strut  about  importantly  and  confer  with  this  person  or 
that  in  more  or  less  audible  tones,  till  he  creates  more  disorder  and 
inattention  than  he  can  ever  correct  with  the  bell  that  such  as  he  use 
for  that  purpose.  The  secretary  may  make  himself  the  biggest 
nuisance  in  the  school.  He  has  no  more  right  than  anyone  else  to 
walk  about  during  the  teaching  period,  gathering  class-books  and  col- 
lection envelopes,  counting  visitors  or  distributing  lesson  leaves  and 
weekly  papers.  These  things  must  be  done,  but  a  time  should  be  set 
apart  for  them.     The  teaching  period  must  be  kept  for  teaching. 

(2)  Know  your  lesson  thoroughly.  It  is  not  enough  to  remove  distrac- 
tions ;  you  must  make  your  teaching  a  positive  attraction.  You  must 
fill  the  hour  with  interest.  You  must  teach  with  power.  And  there  is 
only  one  way  to  attain  power  in  teaching.  It  is  to  begin  at  the  very 
foundation — by  first  learning  the  truth  you  are  to  teach.  To  know  his 
subject  and  to  know  it  thoroughly,  is  the  primary  qualification  of  a 
teacher.  What  you  do  not  have  you  cannot  give.  What  you  do  not 
know  you  cannot  teach.  And  unless  you  are  at  home  in  your  sub- 
ject, and  master  of  its  material,  you  cannot  hope  to  teach  "interestingly. 

This  means  that  you  ought  to  make  a  definite  and  careful  study  of 
each  lesson.  The  teacher  who  relies  upon  his  general  knowledge,  or 
upon  his  familiarity  with  a  round  of  lessons  that  he  has  taught  before, 
is  bound  to  lose  the  interest  of  his  pupils.  The  teacher  who  no  longer 
feels  the  need  of  a  special  preparation  of  each  lesson,  might  as  well 
give  up  his  class. 

But  it  also  means  that  you  ought  not  to  be  content  with  the  mere 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  PRINCIPLES        149 

getting  together  of  the  particular  points  you  wish  to  discuss  with  the 
class.  A  teacher  needs  to  know  a  great  deal  more  than  he  ever 
attempts  to  give  to  his  pupils,  for  sake  both  of  perspective  and  in- 
terest. Professor  Palmer  has  well  expressed  this  need  in  his  charac- 
terization of  the  ideal  teacher.  He  is  speaking  primarily  of  his  own 
experience  as  a  college  professor  ;  but  his  words  apply  as  well  to 
teachers  of  every  sort. 

"  In  preparing  a  lecture,  I  find  I  always  have  to  work  hardest 
on  the  things  I  do  not  say.  The  things  I  am  sure  to  say  I  can 
easily  get  up.  They  are  obvious  and  generally  accessible.  But 
they,  I  find,  are  not  enough.  I  must  have  a  broad  background 
of  knowledge  which  does  not  appear  in  speech.  I  have  to  go 
over  my  entire  subject  and  see  how  the  things  I  am  to  say  look 
in  their  various  relations,  tracing  out  connections  which  I  shall 
not  present  to  my  class.  One  might  ask  what  is  the  use  of  this  ? 
Why  prepare  more  matter  than  can  be  used  ?  Every  successful 
teacher  knows.  I  cannot  teach  right  up  to  the  edge  of  my 
knowledge  without  a  fear  of  falling  off.  My  pupils  discover  this 
fear,  and  my  words  are  ineffective.  They  feel  the  influence  of 
what  I  do  not  say.  One  cannot  precisely  explain  it ;  but  when 
I  move  freely  across  my  subject  as  if  it  mattered  little  on  what 
part  of  it  I  rest,  they  get  a  sense  of  assured  power  which  is  com- 
pulsive and  fructifying.  The  subject  acquires  consequence, 
their  minds  swell,  and  they  are  eager  to  enter  regions  of  which 
they  had  not  previously  thought.  .  .  .  Even  to  teach  a  small 
thing  well  we  must  be  large."  * 

(3)  Be  yourself  interested  in  the  lesson.  You  can  teach  nothing  well 
that  you  have  not  made  a  real  part  of  yourself.  You  can  rouse  no  in- 
terest in  that  for  which  you  do  not  yourself  care.  The  pupil's  attitude 
toward  the  truth  is  generally  a  reflection  of  your  own.  You  must  be 
earnest  and  sincere,  enthusiastic  and  magnetic,  if  you  would  win  your 
boys  and  girls.  But  these  qualities  are  not  to  be  acquired  at  will,  or 
put  on  as  one  would  a  robe.  They  spring  from  the  inward  depths  of 
the  soul.  They  are  rooted  in  your  own  secure  possession  of  the  truth 
which  you  seek  to  give  to  others  only  because  it  has  first  meant  so 
much  to  yourself. 

(4)  Find  the  " point  of  contact.'"  Know  your  pupils.  Understand 
their  experience  and  get  into  sympathetic  touch  with  their  interests. 
Look  at  the  truth  through  their  eyes.     Present  the  lesson  in  terms 

♦Palmer  :  '  The  Teacher,"  p.  17. 


150  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

drawn  from  their  life,  and  adapt  it  to  the  needs  they  feel.  In  short, 
fulfill  the  conditions  of  apperception.  So  present  the  truth  that  they 
may  both  understand  and  welcome  it.  It  is  not  enough  simply  to 
keep  a  class  interested.  Any  entertainer  could  do  that.  You  must 
get  them  interested  in  the  right  thing.  You  must  bring  into  contact 
the  point  of  the  tesson  on  the  one  hand  and  their  wants  and  needs  on 
the  other. 

(5)  Keep  ative.  Keep  the  discussion  moving,  and  get  somewhere. 
Avoid  the  dead  monotony  of  a  set  routine.  Adapt  yourself  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  moment,  and  grasp  its  opportunities. 

Make  your  subject  live.  No  dead,  unchanging  subject  can  ever  hold 
the  attention.  The  lesson  must  grow  at  your  hands,  and  blossom  out 
into  new  aspects  and  meanings. 

Be  alive  to  the  attitudes  of  your  pupils.  Read  their  faces  and 
postures.  Know  who  is  giving  complete  attention  and  whose  mind  is 
wandering,  who  is  understanding  and  who  is  not  ;  then  fit  your  teach- 
ing to  the  conditions  you  face. 

"  Every  teacher  greatly  needs  a  quick  eye  and  a  compre- 
hensive glance,  which  will  take  in  the  whole  class  at  one  view, 
or  travel  instantly  from  one  part  of  it  to  the  other.  He  should 
be  able  to  detect  the  first  rising  of  disorder,  and  the  first  symp- 
toms of  weariness,  in  an  instant,  and  to  apply  a  remedy  to  it  the 
next  instant.  .  .  .  Among  the  minor  characteristics  of  a  suc- 
cessful teacher,  few  things  are  so  important  as  alacrity  of  move- 
ment ;  promptitude  and  readiness  both  in  seeing  and  hearing  ; 
skill  in  finding  out,  at  a  moment's  notice,  who  is  the  idlest  boy 
in  the  class,  and  in  giving  him  a  question,  or  giving  him  a  verse 
to  read,  before  his  mind  becomes  thoroughly  alienated  from  the 
subject,  and  before  the  contagion  of  his  example  has  had  time  to 
spread  among  the  rest.  A  sluggish,  heavy,  inactive-looking 
teacher  can  never  gain  the  sympathy  of  children,  or  keep  up  their 
attention  long."  * 

Be  alive  to  the  ideas  of  your  pupils.  Get  them  to  think  for  them- 
selves and  to  express  what  they  think.  Then  respect  their  thoughts. 
Take  pains  to  understand  them.  Use  them  in  the  development  of  the 
truth.  There  will  be  many  misconceptions  and  blundering  statements, 
of  course.  But  you  will  not  treat  them  as  one  might  the  guesses  at  the 
answer  to  a  conundrum — reject  or  accept  them,  and  nothing  more. 
Those  very  misconceptions  are  the  material  upon  which  you  must 

*  Fitch  :  "  The  Art  of  Securing  Attention,"  pp.  99,  100. 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  PRINCIPLES        151 

work.  You  will  take  them  at  their  face  value,  as  expressions  of  the 
pupil's  real  understanding  of  the  matter  in  hand  and  his  honest  attempt 
to  contribute  to  the  discussion.  You  will  lead  him  to  see  where  they 
are  wrong,  and  so  to  revise  and  correct  them.  A  mistaken  statement, 
expressing  the  pupil's  own  thought,  is  worth  much  more  to  you  than  a 
perfectly  correct  one  which  is  only  an  echo  of  what  you  have  told  him 
or  he  has  read  in  a  book.  It  is  your  business,  not  to  put  ready-made 
ideas  in  at  the  pupil's  ears  and  then  pull  them  out  again  at  his  mouth, 
but  to  help  him  to  construct  right  ideas  of  his  own.  No  class  can  have 
life  and  interest  where  the  teacher  s  ideas  are  the  only  ones  expressed 
or  ultimately  used.  There  must  be  a  real  exchange  of  thought.  The 
best  teacher  is  he  who  can  most  skillfully  use  the  pupil's  own  ideas.* 

6.  The  teacher  should  appeal  to  that  interest  whose  apper- 
ceptive value  is  highest.  Interesting  a  pupil  and  getting  him  to 
understand  the  lesson  should  be  one  and  the  same  thing.  The  interest 
to  which  the  teacher  appeals  should  be  such  as  may  help  the  pupil  to 
grasp  the  truth  and  develop  a  right  permanent  attitude  toward  it.  If  a 
boy  learns  a  Bible  verse  because  he  will  get  a  ' '  ticket ' '  for  it,  ultimately 
redeemable  in  a  prize,  his  interest  neither  helps  him  to  understand  the 
verse,  nor  begets  within  him  an  attitude  toward  the  Bible  that  is  per- 
manently desirable.  If  the  teacher  tells  a  funny  story  or  two  "to  get 
the  class  interested,"  and  then  plunges  into  a  lesson  discussion  to 
which  they  apply  but  remotely,  the  class  will  remember  the  stories 
but  not  the  teaching.  In  both  these  cases  the  interest  appealed  to  is 
external.  It  bears  no  vital  relation  to  the  content  of  the  lesson.  The 
teacher  seems  to  assume  that  the  arousal  of  interest  and  the  presen- 
tation of  the  lesson  are  separate  problems. 

But  we  fail  unless  we  get  the  pupil  interested  in  the  lesson  itself. 
And  that  means  that  we  must  translate  the  whole  lesson  material  into 
terms  of  the  pupil's  own  experience,  that  answer  to  his  instincts  and 

*I  once  heard  a  teacher  in  the  fourth  grade  of  a  city  public  school  attempt  to 
make  her  pupils  understand  the  function  of  the  nerves  in  the  human  body.  "  If 
your  father  were  in  Chicago,"  she  said  (it  being  several  hundred  miles  distant), 
"and  your  mother  wanted  to  get  word  to  him  right  away,  what  would  she  do?" 
"  Telephone  "—at  once  cried  a  half  dozen  of  the  children.  "  Why,  yes,  that  might 
do  ;  but  I  am  thinking  of  a  better  way,"  was  the  answer.  None  could  think  of  the 
better  way  ;  and  she  finally  had  to  tell  them  that  she  meant  telegraph.  She  not 
only  failed  to  use  the  pupils' own  idea  ;  she  pressed  upon  them  a  poorer  illustra- 
tion than  they  had  themselves  suggested.  Every  child  knew  and  used  the  tele- 
phone ;  few  knew  anything  of  the  telegraph.  She  rejected  an  analogy  of  high 
apperceptive  value  for  one  little  understood— and  all  because  she  could  not  adapt 
herself.  She  was  not  alive  ;  she  mechanically  followed  the  plan  she  had  thought 
out  beforehand. 


152  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

felt  needs.  We  must  do  more  than  put  a  sugar-coat  over  an  unchanged 
inner  material ;  we  must  leaven  the  whole  lump.  Our  problem  is  not 
to  viake  a  lesson  interesting  by  tricks  of  method  or  by  adding  to  it 
stories  or  other  material  pleasant  but  extraneous  ;  it  is  to  bring  out  of 
each  lesson  its  intrinsic  interest.  * 

There  are  times  of  extremity,  of  course,  when  the  teacher  has  no 
choice  He  is  driven  to  appeal  to  any  interest,  however  remote,  that 
will  give  him  access  to  the  mind  of  the  pupil.  Such  extremity  may 
result  from  his  own  failure  to  bring  out  the  essential  interes  'of  the 
lesson.  Usually,  however,  it  comes  simply  from  the  lack  of  that  per- 
sonal confidence  and  respect  of  the  class  for  the  teacher  that  underlies 
all  effective  teaching.  The  teacher  just  beginning  work  with  an  unruly 
gang  of  boys  or  with  a  self-satisfied,  giggling  bevy  of  girls,  must  win 
them  first  in  any  way  he  can.  He  may  have  to  begin  with  something 
utterly  foreign  to  the  truth  he  means  ultimately  to  bring  out.  The 
"  point  of  contact "  he  first  seeks  is  that  between  his  pupils  and  him- 
self ;  only  later  can  he  seek  to  make  contact  between  their  needs  and 
a  lesson  point. 

7.  Attention,  interest,  'apperception,  are  but  three  aspects  of 
one  and  the  same  mental  process — that,  in  short,  is  the  point  which 
this  chapter  seeks  to  make  plain.  Attention  is  a  name  for  clear  and 
definite  mental  activity  ;  interest  is  its  motive  and  apperception  its 
result.  Interest  determines  both  the  direction  of  attention  and  the 
meaning  of  that  to  which  attention  is  paid.  To  know  how  to  call 
forth  the  right  interest  is  one  of  the  vital  secrets  of  effective  teaching. 

We  cannot  learn  that  secret  all  at  once.  But  we  shall  be  kept  from 
many  mistakes  if  we  remember  that  interest  is  more  than  a  means 
which  the  teacher  may  employ  ;  it  is  an  end  of  education.  We  must  do 
more  than  use  the  pupil's  interests  to  get  his  attention  for  a  passing 
hour  ;  the  chief  aim  of  our  work  is  the  development  within  him  of  a 
genuine,  many-sided,  comprehending  interest  in  all  those  things  of 
life  that  have  real  worth.  Our  pupils  will  likely  forget  every  par- 
ticular fact  that  we  teach  them  ;  but  the  interests  we  have  fed  will  re- 
main. The  teacher  does  well,  therefore,  to  put  to  himself  now  and 
then  the  question,  "Am  I,  or  am  I  not,  appealing  to  interests  that  I 
would  have  permanent,  or  that  I  can  use  in  the  development  of  worthy 
life  attitudes?"  If  you  can  answer  that  question  in  the  affirmative, 
and  really  get  and  hold  the  interest  of  your  class,  you  are  succeeding 
in  your  work. 

*  Cf.  Dewey  :  "  The  Child  and  the  Curriculum,"  p.  38. 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  PRINCIPLES        153 

QUESTIONS 

i.  What  do  you  understand  by  attention? 

2.  "  Attention  cannot  be  kept  long  upon  an  unchanging  object" — 
why? 

3.  What  two  kinds  of  attention  are  distinguished  in  this  chapter? 

4.  What  do   you   understand  by  the   "unstable   equilibrium"  of 
voluntary  attention  ? 

5.  What  is  interest  ?    Discuss  the  relation  of  interest  and  attention. 

6.  In  what  senses  is  attention  an  apperceptive  process  ? 

7.  Why  must  the  teacher  get  and  hold  the  attention  of  his  class? 

8.  Why  is  it  a  positive  harm  to  teach  without  the  attention  of  the 
class? 

9.  Discuss  some  of  the  distractions  to  attention  which  lie  within 
the  teacher's  power  to  remove. 

10.  What  positive  conditions  must  the  teacher  fulfill  if  he  would 
engage  the  interest  of  his  class  ? 

11.  Why  ought  a,  teacher  know  more  than  he  intends  to  present 
to  his  class  ? 

12.  What  do  you  understand  by  the  phrase  "point  of  contact"  as 
used  in  this  chapter?    What  by  "  keeping  alive  "  ? 

13.  Why  should  the  teacher  appeal  to  that  interest  whose  appercep- 
tive value  is  highest  ? 


LESSON  XVII 
Attention  and  Apperception  :  Methods 

The  last  chapter  dealt  with  principles  ;  in  this  we  shall  seek  to  apply 
them.  We  shall  consider  some  of  the  particular  methods  which  the 
teacher  may  use  to  hold  the  attention  and  interest  of  his  pupils  and 
to  help  them  understand  the  truth. 

i.  Continuity.  By  continuity  we  shall  understand  the  connection 
of  lessons  with  one  another.  The  lessons  should  have  connection — 
historical  or  logical  ;  and  the  teacher  should  try  to  make  the  pupil  see 
and  understand  it. 

It  is  possible,  of  course,  to  present  each  lesson  in  and  for  itself. 
The  lessons  of  a  quarter  or  a  year  thus  constitute  a  mere  series — like 
a  string  of  pearls,  each  in  itself  a  finished  work  of  art,  but  only  strung 
together.  But  such  a  procedure  involves  a  great  waste  of  energy.  It 
is  poor  economy  to  begin  over  again  each  Sunday,  and  to  face  anew 
the  problem  of  engaging  the  interest  of  the  class.  Yet  that  is  what  the 
teacher  does  Mho  fails  to  make  clear  the  continuity  of  the  lessons. 
The  class  may  often  enough  compel  you  to  begin  anew  the  battle  for 
interest  ;  but  you  are  foolish  deliberately  to  plan  to  do  so.  Strive  to 
carry  interest  over  from  Sunday  to  Sunday.  Make  each  lesson  lead 
up  to  the  next  and  help  set  its  problems.  So  teach  that  what  the  pupil 
gets  may  make  him  want  more.  Gather  a  headway  of  interest.  Every 
day's  teaching  should  make  the  next  easier. 

Teaching  that  lacks  continuity,  moreover,  fails  to  realize  one  of  the 
ends  at  which  all  teaching  should  aim.  It  fails  to  organize  the  truth 
within  the  mind  of  the  pupil.  He  learns  so  many  scattered  stories  and 
facts,  moral  maxims  and  spiritual  truths  ;  but  never  gets  them  put 
together,  save  in  some  haphazard  fashion  of  his  own.  Much  of  what 
has  been  taught  him  will  drop  out  of  mind,  simply  for  lack  of  connect- 
ing links  with  the  rest  of  his  knowledge  ;  and  the  whole  will  lack  per- 
spective. The  teacher  must  help  the  pupil,  not  only  to  get  ideas,  but  to 
systematize  and  unify  them.  Organization  is  no  less  important  than 
impression. 

Three  counsels  are  important,  though  obvious  : 

( i )  The  work  of  organization  must  be  done  a  bit  at  a  time,  week  after 
week.     Do  not  wait  until  review  Sunday,  and  expect  to  do  it  all  then, 

(154) 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  METHODS  155 

(2)  Make  sure  that  the  connection  you  teach  is  the  real  one.  You 
must  find  continuity  in  the  Bible,  not  put  it  there.  You  have  no  right 
to  substitute  an  imagined  connection  of  your  own  for  that  which  the 
lessons  actually  possess. 

(3)  Study  the  whole  before  you  attempt  to  teach  the  part.  Many  Sun- 
day school  teachers  study  wrongly.  They  simply  keep  a  week  ahead 
of  the  class,  or  even — be  it  confessed  with  shame— right  with  the  class. 
They  live  from  hand  to  mouth,  each  week  preparing  just  enough 
material  to  fill  out  the  teaching  period  on  the  coming  Sunday.  They 
cannot  rightly  connect  lesson  with  lesson  in  the  mind  of  the  pupil 
because  their  own  vision  is  limited  to  the  matter  immediately  in  hand, 
with,  perhaps,  a  glance  ahead.  The  teacher  ought  to  know  his  whole 
subject  be/ore  he  begins  to  teach.  When  you  enter  upon  a  new  series 
of  lessons — say  the  life  of  David  or  the  history  of  the  early  Church — go 
over  the  whole  ground.  Get  a  plan  for  the  series.  You  will  then 
know  how  to  plan  each  lesson,  that  it  may  not  only  be  clear  in  itself, 
but  contribute  to  the  final  organization  of  the  truth. 

2.  Correlation.  By  correlation  we  shall  understand  the  connectio7i 
of  the  Sunday  school  lessons  with  the  rest  of  the  pupiPs  education. 
The  teacher  should  not  ignore,  but  build  upon  the  work  of  the  public 
schools. 

Of  all  the  ideas  which  the  pupil  will  bring  to  bear  upon  your  teach- 
ing, and  which  will  determine  its  meaning  for  him,  none  are  more 
easily  accessible  than  those  which  he  is  acquiring  day  by  day  in  the 
schools.  That  much  of  his  experience  at  least  you  can  get  definitely 
acquainted  with.  You  can  find  out  just  what  ideas  he  has  gotten, 
what  stories  he  knows,  what  facts  of  history  and  science  he  has  learned, 
what  things  he  can  and  cannot  do,  what  interests  he  has  acquired. 
You  can  meet  him  then  on  common  ground,  and  present  the  truth  in 
ways  that  he  will  understand. 

This  does  not  mean  that  you  are  to  use  the  methods  of  the  public 
school,  simply  that  you  take  account  of  the  ideas  it  gives  to  your 
pupils  and  use  them  as  an  apperceptive  basis.  You  will  question  the 
pupil  about  what  he  has  already  learned,  and  use  his  answers  in  the 
development  of  new  truth.  You  will  illustrate  the  lesson  with  stories 
that  the  school  has  made  familiar.  You  will  appeal  to  biography  and 
history,  and  to  his  growing  acquaintance  with  the  facts  of  nature. 
You  will  connect  Bible  geography  with  that  of  the  world  at  large. 

The  advantages  of  such  correlation  are  :  ( 1 )  It  arouses  the  interest 
and  self-activity  of  the  pupil.  It  unites  new  and  old  within  him.  It 
makes  him  think,  and  gives  him  a  chance  to  express  himself  and  con- 


156  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

tribute  to  the  discussion.  (2)  It  gives  the  class  confidence  in  their 
teacher.  Every  item  of  correlation  is  to  them  so  much  evidence  of  the 
breadth  and  accuracy  of  his  knowledge.  (3)  It  begets  within  the  pupil 
a  sense  of  the  unity  of  spiritual  truth  and  material  fact,  of  religion 
and  the  life  of  every  day.  (4)  It  actually  brings  about  this  unity,  and 
so  makes  the  truths  learned  in  Sunday  school  more  permanent  and 
usable.  We  really  possess  ideas  only  in  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  call 
them  up  when  needed  ;  and  that  ability  depends,  we  remember,  upon 
the  laws  of  association.  To  insure  the  permanence  and  future  useful- 
ness to  the  pupil  of  anything  we  teach,  we  must  multiply  its  associa- 
tions with  other  things — and  with  such  things,  be  it  marked,  as  he  is 
apt  often  to  meet  or  to  have  in  mind.  If  the  spiritual  truths  we  teach 
in  Sunday  school  are  ever  to  count  for  much  in  the  actual  life  of  our 
pupils,  we  must  not  be  content  simply  to  connect  the  lessons  with  one 
another  or  to  construct  a  system  of  doctrine  that  is  internally  self-con- 
sistent. We  must  reach  out  into  the  rest  of  knowledge  and  into  life 
itself  to  make  associations.  We  must,  by  question  and  illustration,  by 
allusion  and  direct  cross-reference,  weave  connections  with  the  rest  of 
the  pupil's  ideas.  We  must  make  religion  an  integral  part  of  that 
larger  organization  of  ideas  and  powers  at  which  education  aims  as  a 
whole. 

The  dangers  to  be  guarded  against  are  :  ( 1 )  That  of  wandering 
from  the  point.  It  is  easy  to  be  led  off  into  details  of  correlation,  till 
the  real  point  of  the  lesson  is  obscured.  (2)  That  of  a  wrong  attitude 
on  the  part  of  the  pupil.  He  may  dislike  his  school  work  ;  and  your 
attempt  at  correlation  may  only  succeed  in  transferring  the  dislike. 
Correlation  is  most  valuable  at  those  periods  in  the  pupil's  develop- 
ment when  he  is  most  interested  in  what  he  is  learning  at  school.  We 
have  seen  that  middle  childhood  is  such  a  period.  Later  adolescence 
is  another,  for  those  who  are  still  in  school  or  college  and  are  laying 
hold  of  the  great  truths  of  science.  In  later  childhood  and  early  ado- 
lescence, on  the  other  hand,  school  is  often  enough  a  bore.  In  any 
case,  your  problem  is  an  individual  one.  You  must  find  a  "point  of 
contact"  for  each  pupil.  (3)  That  of  too  little  knowledge. on  your  part. 
Do  not  attempt  to  correlate  your  teaching  with  that  of  the  public 
school  unless  you  know  thoroughly  just  what  your  pupils  are  getting 
there.  Otherwise  they  will  soon  find  out  that  you  do  not  know 
everything  that  you  are  talking  about ;  and  you  will  lose  their  con- 
fidence. 

3.  Illustration.  There  is  no  surer  way  to  bring  the  truth  home  to 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  those  we  teach  than  by  effective  illustration. 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  METHODS  157 

The  teacher  needs  the  gift  of  imagination.  He  must  be  able  to  see  the 
truth  concretely,  and  quick  to  conceive  its  analogies.  Illustrations  are 
of  two  great  sorts — stories  and  figures  of  speech.  Jesus  used  both. 
To  teach  the  fatherhood  of  God  He  told  the  story  of  a  prodigal  son  ; 
to  teach  the  brotherhood  of  man  He  told  the  story  of  a  good  Samaritan. 
He  spoke  of  Himself  as  the  "good  shepherd,"  the  "bread  of  life," 
the  "  stone  which  the  builders  rejected";  and  of  the  relation  of  His 
disciples  to  Himself  as  that  of  "branches"  to  the  "vine."  He  likened 
His  service  to  a  "  yoke  "  that  is  "easy  " ;  the  spread  of  His  kingdom  to 
the  growth  of  a  "grain  of  mustard  seed." 

(i)  The  ittustration  must  be  more  famitiar  than  the  truth  it  is  meant 
to  illustrate.  It  should  be  simple  and  concrete,  dealing  with  matters 
that  lie  well  within  the  range  of  the  pupils'  own  experience.  Its  aim  is 
to  cast  the  light  of  the  known  upon  the  unknown.  If  it,  too,  deals  with 
what  is  unknown,  we  simply  double  difficulties.  Jesus  always  drew 
His  illustrations  from  the  common  experiences  of  everyday  life.  It  is 
one  of  the  things  that  made  Him  the  ideal  Teacher. 

We  need  to  remember  this  principle  even  with  respect  to  those 
illustrations  which  are  recorded  in  the  Bible  itself.  They  reflect  the 
life  of  Bible  times  and  Bible  lands.  And  because  our  life  is  different, 
we  may  not  understand  them.  Missionaries  have  learned  that  they 
must  put  the  truth  in  terms  of  the  life  of  the  people  they  address, 
even  though  it  may  compel  a  very  free  paraphrasing  of  the  Scripture 
story. 

"One  Sunday,  in  Ceylon,  I  was  addressing,  through  an  in- 
terpreter, a  large  congregation  of  native  Christians,  and  unfor- 
tunately chose  the  subject  of  the  good  shepherd.  My  inter- 
preter told  me  afterward  that  not  one  of  my  hearers  had  ever 
seen  a  sheep,  or  knew  what  it  was.  '  How,  then,  did  you  ex- 
plain what  I  said  ? '  I  asked.  '  Oh  !  '  he  replied,  '  I  turned  it 
into  a  buffalo  that  had  lost  its  calf,  and  went  into  the  jungle  to 
find  it.'"* 

It  is  a  question  how  much  a  city  child  can  get  out  of  the  many  figures 
in  the  Bible  which  are  drawn  from  pastoral  life — a  child  who  has  seen 
sheep  only  in  pictures,  and  knows  nothing  whatever  of  shepherds. 
A  child,  again,  whose  only  experience  of  fishing  has  been  gotten  on 
an  occasional  picnic,  will  hardly  comprehend  the  illustrations  which 
Jesus  used  in  teaching  the  fishermen  whom  he  trained  to  be  "fishers 
of  men."     Nor  are  children  the  only  ones.     We  all  fail  often  enough 

*  Canon  Tristram,  quoted  by  Du  Bois  :  "  The  Point  of  Contact  in  Teaching," 
p.  91. 


153  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

to  grasp  the  point  of  some  Bible  figure  because  we  lack  real  acquaint- 
ance with  the  life  and  thought-forms  to  which  it  appealed.  The  hyper- 
bole, for  example,  of  Jesus'  remark  when  the  rich  young  ruler  "  went 
away  sorrowful,"  is  utterly  lost  if  we  talk  about  a  tiny  gate  called  the 
"needle's  eye"  through  which  camels  actually  were  forced,  stripped 
of  their  loads.  It  need  no  more  be  literally  true  that  camels  go 
through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  that  men  "  strain  out  the  gnat  and 
swallow  the  camel."  The  point  is  precisely  that  they  do  not.  In 
both  these  cases  Jesus  probably  made  use  of  expressions  that  were 
common  in  His  day.  If  we  had  been  close  enough  to  the  everyday 
life  of  the  people  who  made  up  Jesus'  audiences,  we  should  doubtless 
have  heard  men  say  "  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  a  needle's  eye  " 
in  just  the  same  way  as  we  used  to  say  before  the  day  of  the  Wrights, 
"  I  could  no  sooner  do  that  than  fly.'' 

We  must  remember,  moreover,  that  an  illustration  perfectly  familiar 
and  simple  to  ourselves  may  not  be  such  to  our  pupils.  It  is  from 
their  standpoint  that  its  effectiveness  is  to  be  judged. 

"  I  once  heard  a  preacher  explain  hope  to  a  number  of  chil- 
dren thus  :  '  Now,  I  will  explain  hope,  so  all  these  little  girls 
can  go  home  and  tell  their  mothers  what  hope  is.  Now,  chil- 
dren, you  know  that  this  beautiful  stream  of  water  that  runs 
behind  this  meeting-house  is  composed  of  two  elements,  oxygen 
and  hydrogen  ;  so  hope  is  composed  of  desire  and  expectation.' 
And  on  he  went."  * 

This  preacher  gives  an  excellent  example  of  what  not  to  do.  He 
not  only  uses  a  poor  illustration,  he  tries  to  make  up  for  its  lack  of 
simplicity  by  a  sort  of  playful  intimacy  of  manner  and  irrelevant  re- 
mark. If  he  were  a  Sunday  school  superintendent,  he  would  be  the 
sort  to  stand  up  and  deliver  questions  like  this  :  "Now,  what  bright 
little  boy  or  girl,  on  this  beautiful  crisp  Sabbath  morning,  when  I  know 
you  all  must  be  feeling  glad  and  happy  and  thankful  to  the  good  God 
who  has  given  you  sunshine  and  food  and  dear  parents,  can  stand  up 
real  straight  and  fine  and  recite  for  me,  without  missing  a  word,  the 
Golden  Text  ? ' '  Too  many  teachers  are  like  him.  They  are  convinced 
that  they  must  get  down  to  the  plane  of  the  child  ;  and  make  the  mis- 
take of  thinking  they  can  do  it  by  elephantine  playfulness,  needless 
remarks  and  a  forced  familiarity.  They  do  more  than  get  down  to  the 
plane  of  the  child  ;  they  fall  below  it,  and  children  are  not  slow  to  feel 
that  fact.     The  only  way  to  get  simplicity  is  to  make  the  lesson  material 

*  "  The  Sunday  School  Teacher's  Pedagogy,"  p.  106. 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  METHODS  150 

itself  simple ;  to  find  something  in  the  child'*  s  own  experience  to  which 
it  may  be  likened,  and  so  to  develop  the  new  on  the  basis  of  the  old  and 
fan/ilia/'. 

This  principle  is  so  important  that  we  may  well  stop  to  get  another 
example : 

"  I  remember  once  hearing  an  address  to  children  based  upon 
the  text,  'The  little  foxes  that  spoil  the  vines.'  These  little 
foxes  were  our  small  vices  or  weaknesses.  Why  did  the  speaker 
choose  such  a  point  of  departure  ?  I  suppose  '  the  little  foxes  ' 
had  a  simple,  childlike  sound  about  it  to  him,  and  seemed  as 
though  it  would  be  easily  a  point  of  interest  to  little  children. 
Perhaps  it  was,  in  so  far  as  it  aroused  their  curiosity.  Whatever 
the  children  got  out  of  the  address,  they  got  in  spite  of,  rather 
than  because  of,  the  point  of  departure,  which  was  not  a  point 
of  contact  with  common  experience.  To  very  few  children  does 
a  fox  exist  in  more  than  name,  if  that ;  and  the  propensity  of 
foxes  for  spoiling  vines  is  one  that  they  could  not  appreciate  un- 
less they  had  lived  in  a  country  where  they  had  actually  seen 
this  kind  of  destruction  wrought,  or  heard  it  talked  about  until 
it  became  a  familiar  fact."  * 

(2)  Illustrations  should  be  natural,  spontaneous  and  to  the  point. 
Stories  that  impress  one  as  being  lugged  in  to  keep  things  lively, 
figures  that  are  strained  and  artificial,  have  no  place.  Illustration  is 
not  an  end  in  itself,  neither  is  it  for  sake  of  ornament.  It  is  to  help 
the  pupil  understand.  If  it  does  not  really  help,  or  is  not  needed, 
better  cut  it  out. 

(3)  It  is  a  mistake  to  use  too  many  illustrations.  Just  enough  to 
make  the  point  clear  and  impress  it  strongly  is  the  rule.  And  one 
illustration  to  a  single  point,  if  it  be  well  chosen,  is  generally  enough. 
If  more  be  used,  they  are  apt  to  confuse.  On  the  other  hand,  care 
must  be  taken  not  to  use  the  same  illustration  always  for  a  given  point, 
lest  the  pupil's  conception  of  the  truth  be  narrowed  and  distorted  by 
constant  association  with  one  particular  instance. 

(4)  The  illustration  should  not  be  incongruous.  It  should  not  be 
more  unlike  than  like  the  truth  it  is  meant  to  picture.  I  once  heard  an 
evangelist  speak  of  the  "knock-out  blow"  that  Christ  gave  to  the 
church  at  Ephesus  when  He  wrote  to  them  through  John  :  "  Never- 
theless I  have  somewhat  against  thee,  because  thou  hast  left  thy  first 
love."     And  he  was  not  content  to  leave  it  a  metaphor  ;  he  made  it  a 

*  Du  Bois:  "  The  Point  of  Contact  in  Teaching"  p.  85. 


180  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

story,  and  launched  into  a  vivid  description  of  a  certain  disgusting 
prize-fight  which  had  taken  place  a  few  months  before,  picturing  how 
all  that  the  beaten  fighter  had  done  through  round  after  round  was  of 
no  avail  against  that  one  blow  that  finally  knocked  him  out. 

(5)  The  illustration  should  not  be  too  suggestive.  It  is  but  a  window 
through  which  the  truth  is  to  shine.  If  it  attracts  attention  to  itself,  it 
distracts  the  mind  and  clouds  the  vision.  Some  illustrations  are  too 
vivid  and  interesting.  They  start  new  and  inviting  trains  of  thought, 
and  the  pupil  is  soon  far  from  the  lesson. 

"A  mission  [Sunday  school  was  listening  to  a  talk  upon  the 
fixedness  of  habits  formed  in  youth,  and  to  make  it  clearer  the 
speaker  said,  '  Boys,  do  they  ever  lay  cement  walks  in  this 
neighborhood  ? '  Every  eye  was  riveted  on  him,  as  they  ans- 
wered, 'Yes!'  'Did  you  know,'  he  continued,  'that  if  you 
were  to  take  a  sharp-pointed  stick  and  write  your  name  in  the 
cement  while  it  was  soft,  it  would  harden  and  remain  there  as 
long  as  the  walk  lasted?'  'Of  course,'  he  hastily  added,  as  a 
significant  expression  appeared  on  their  faces,  'no  boy  here 
would  be  mean  enough  to  do  such  a  thing;'  but  it  was  too  late 
— the  picture  had  done  its  work,  and  the  purpose  of  handing 
autographs  down  to  posterity  would  be  executed  at  the  first 
opportunity."  * 

4.  How  to  tell  a  story.  There  are  two  standpoints  from  which  we 
may  judge  a  story.  We  may  inquire,  first,  whether  it  is  well  told  or 
worth  telling,  just  as  a  story,  to  be  enjoyed ;  second,  whether  it  teaches 
anything  or  drives  home  a  moral.  As  Sunday  school  teachers,  we  think 
of  stories  generally  from  the  second  of  these  standpoints,  and  it  is  our 
vice  to  neglect  the  first.  But  the  truth  is,  that  the  teaching  value  of  a 
story  depends  upon  its  enjoyment  value.  If  it  is  not  worth  telling  just 
as  a  story,  or  if  it  is  poorly  told,  it  will  not  fulfill  its  purpose  as  a  bit  of 
teaching. 

A  good  story  is,  as  Miss  Bryant  reminds  us,  a  work  of  art.f  It  ex- 
ists, primarily,  to  be  enjoyed.  Its  worth  is  intrinsic.  It  claims  atten- 
tion for  its  own  sake.     We  gaze  in  rapt  wonder  at  a  beautiful  land- 

*  L,amoreaux  :  "  The  Unfolding  Iyife,"  pp.  117,  118. 

t  Every  teacher  should  be  familiar  with  Miss  Bryant's  book  on  "How  to  Tell 
Stories  to  Children."  Its  title  is  too  narrow.  It  really  tells  how  to  tell  stories  to 
anybody.  The  teacher  of  an  adult  class,  who  uses  stories  only  for  illustration, 
may  profit  from  it  as  much  as  the  teacher  of  children  who  must  present  every 
lesson  in  story  form. 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  METHODS  161 

scape  or  a  great  picture,  not  for  the  sake  of  what  we  ultimately  hope 
to  get  from  either  ;  but  simply  because  its  beauty  entrances  our  souls. 
So  children  and  men  alike  love  a  good  story,  not  because  they  seek 
from  it  an  ulterior  benefit,  but  because  it  fires  the  imagination  and 
moves  the  feelings.  Like  landscape  and  picture,  it  has  an  appeal  of 
its  own.     It  just  naturally  grips  us,  we  know  not  how  or  why. 

The  teaching  value  of  a  well  told  story  is  thus  indirect.  The  pupil 
gives  himself  up  to  its  enjoyment.  Like  a  bit  of  play,  it  relaxes  the 
tension  of  the  classroom.  There  is  no  effort  needed  to  hold  the 
attention  ;  the  story  grips  his  interest,  and  he  surrenders  to  it  without 
reserve.  It  brings  before  him  a  mental  picture,  and  stirs  the  heart 
within  him.  But  at  the  end  he  has  gotten  more  than  a  mere  picture, 
and  experienced  what  is  deeper  than  an  idle  play  of  feeling — he  has 
gained  a  concrete  impression  of  the  truth  and  has  felt  its  power.  Sir 
Joshua  Fitch  has  brought  this  out  admirably  in  his  description  of  how 
Nathan  taught  David  the  greatest  lesson  of  his  life. 

''When  Nathan  was  commissioned  to  reprove  David,  you 
know  that  if  he  had  gone  at  once,  and  taxed  him  with  the 
offence,  and  said,  '  You  have  committed  a  great  sin,  and  I  have 
come  to  rebuke  you,'  David  would  probably  have  been  prepared 
with  some  answer.  That  was  a  form  of  accusation  which  he  very 
likely  anticipated,  and  we  do  not  doubt  he  had  so  armed  him- 
self with  pleas  of  self-justification,  and  so  skillfully  'managed' 
his  conscience,  that  the  charge  would  scarcely  have  impressed 
him  at  all.  But  instead  of  this,  the  prophet  began  to  tell 
him  a  narrative  :  '  There  were  two  men  in  one  city,  the  one 
rich  and  the  other  poor.'  He  went  on  further,  as  you  know, 
detailing  the  various  incidents  of  his  story,  until  'David's  anger 
was  greatly  kindled  against  the  man,'  and  he  exclaimed,  'As 
the  Lord  liveth,  the  man  that  hath  done  this  thing  shall  surely 
die.'  Not  till  the  solemn. words,  'Thou  art  the  man  ! '  had  been 
uttered  in  his  hearing,  did  the  conviction  come  thoroughly  home 
to  his  heart  that  he  was  really  guilty.  Now,  why  was  it  that 
Nathan's  method  was  so  effective  ?  Because  David  had  listened 
with  interest  to  the  story  without  supposing  that  it  concerned  him. 
His  judgment  was  clear  and  unbiased,  and  he  came  to  the  right 
conclusion  before  he  perceived  that  the  conclusion  applied  to 
himself.  How  much  deeper  and  more  permanent  was  the  im- 
pression thus  made  than  if  the  prophet  had  confined  himself  to 
a  plain,  literal  examination  of  the  right  and  wrong  of  David's 
own  case.    And  we  may  see  the  same  thing  illustrated  in  our 

11 


1(i2  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIEvS 

Lord's  parables  constantly,  that  they  not  only  chain  the  atten- 
tion of  the  listener  by  their  pictorial  character,  but  they  set  him 
thinking  for  himself,  and  drawing  inferences  about  truths  of  the 
highest  value  almost  without  being  aware  of  it.  The  most  effect- 
ive lessons  which  enter  the  human  heart  are  not  those  which  take 
the  form  of  lessons.  It  is  when  we  are  least  conscious  of  the 
process  by  which  we  are  impressed  that  we  are  impressed  most 
deeply. ' '  * 

We  now  see  the  truth  in  President  Hall's  statement,  before  quoted, 
that  story-telling  is  the  most  important  of  all  things  that  a  teacher 
should  know  how  to  do.  It  is  a  thing,  moreover,  that  every  teacher 
can  learn  to  do.  We  are  mistaken  if  we  assume  that  the  story-teller's 
gift  is  all  inborn,  and  not  to  be  cultivated. 

( i)  To  tell  a  story  well  one  must  prepare  and  practice  it.  There  are 
times,  of  course,  when  the  inspiration  of  the  moment  gives  both  vision 
and  power  of  expression.  But  he  who  relies  upon  such  inspiration 
will  miserably  fail.  Here,  as  everywhere,  the  secret  of  success  is 
work. 

( 2 )  To  tell  a  story  well,  one  must  first  possess  it  and  make  it  a  very 
part  of  himself.  He  must  possess  it  in  imagination.  He  must  really 
see  the  thing  he  hopes  to  make  others  see.  He  must  possess  it  logic- 
ally— grasping  its  point,  and  holding  its  details  in  right  relation.  He 
must  possess  it  in  feeling — putting  his  heart  into  the  situation  he  de- 
scribes. It  is  worse  than  useless  to  tell  a  story  that  you  do  not  your- 
self appreciate  and  enjoy,  or  to  try  to  move  others  to  a  sympathy  you 
do  not  feel. 

(3)  Reduce  the  story  to  its  simplest  terms.  Find  the  main  plot,  and 
let  everything  else  go.  Eliminate  rigidly  all  unnecessary  details,  irrel- 
evant incidents  and  secondary  characters.  Then  tell  the  story  in  direct 
and  simple  language,  and  in  terms  of  action  rather  than  of  description. 
"Tell  what  was  done,  not  how  somebody  felt  or  thought  when  some- 
thing was  being  done.  .  .  .  Those  of  us  who  have  grown  away  from 
childhood  tend  to  reverse  the  true  order,  to  place  the  emphasis  on  the 
question,  '  What  kind  of  a  man  was  he  ? '  and  not  on  '  What  did  he 
do  ? '  Let  what  he  did  tell  what  he  was.  Your  story  will  thus  have 
'go,'  as  all  Bible  stories  have."  f 

(4)  Maintain  logical  unity  and  movement.  Nothing  spoils  a  story  so 
utterly  as  a  confusion  of  points  of  view,  or  the  failure  to  get  some  point 

*  Fitch  :  "  The  Art  of  Securing  Attention,"  pp.  107,  108.     Italics  not  in  the  original, 
f  Hervey  :  "  Picture- Work,''  p.  41. 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  METHODS  163 

in  at  its  rightful  place,  then  backing  up  later  to  supply  it.  No  story- 
teller Ought  ever  to  be  obliged  to  stop  and  say,  "  Oh  !  I  forgot  to  tell 
you  that—." 

(5)  Use  direct  discourse.  When  you  tell  what  somebody  said  use 
the  first  person  instead  of  the  third.  Note  the  confusion  and  obscurity 
of  the  indirect  form  of  telling  the  story  of  the  Good  Samaritan  :  "And 
then  when  he  left  he  gave  the  innkeeper  some  money,  and  told  hint  to 
take  care  of  him,  and  that  if  he  spent  any  more  for  him,  he  would 
repay  him." 

(6)  Put  your  whole  self  into  the  tetling.  This  is  the  hard  thing  for 
most  people.  The  difference  between  a  good  story-teller  and  a  poor 
one  is  most  often  a  difference  of  temperament.  The  first  naturally  and 
spontaneously  expresses  what  he  feels  ;  the  second  is  ashamed  and 
afraid  to  let  himself  go.  The  one  is  naturally  dramatic  ;  the  other 
diffident  and  reserved.  To  tell  a  story  well,  you  must  really  act  it  out, 
in  changes  of  voice  inflection,  in  expression  of  eyes  and  feature,  in 
quiet  gesture.  Anything  more  than  this,  however,  is  out  of  place, 
and  but  calls  attention  to  the  incongruity  of  the  present  situation  with 
that  which  the  teller  is  attempting  too  realistically  to  portray. 

"To  all  who  are  not  by  nature  bodily  expressive  I  would  re- 
iterate the  injunction— not  to  pretend.  Do  nothing  you  cannot 
do  naturally  and  happily.  But  lay  your  stress  on  the  inner  and 
spiritual  effort  to  appreciate,  to  feel,  to  imagine  out  the  tale  ; 
and  let  the  expressiveness  of  your  body  grow  gradually  with 
the  increasing  freedom  from  crippling  self-consciousness.  The 
physique  will  become  more  mobile  as  the  emotion  does.  The 
expression  must,  however,  always  remain  suggestive  rather 
than  illustrative.  This  is  the  side  of  the  case  which  those  who 
are  over-dramatic  must  not  forget.  The  story-teller  is  not  play- 
ing the  parts  of  his  stories  ;  he  is  merely  arousing  the  imagi- 
nation of  his  hearers  to  picture  the  scenes  for  themselves."  * 

5.  Pictures  have  a  threefold  value  as  illustrative  material  : 
(a)  Sense  value.     Appealing  to  the  eye  as  well  as  to  the  ear,  the 
teacher  is  better  able  to  attract  the  attention  and  hold  the  interest  of 
the  pupil.     The  impression  through   both   senses   is   stronger  than 
through  either  alone. 

(d)  Pact  value.  Seeing  gives  more  definite  knowledge  than  hear- 
ing. "  I  had  heard  of  thee  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear  ;  but  now  mine 
eye  seeth  thee."     Pictures  help  to  make  Bible  scenes  real,  and  give 

*  Bryant :  "  How  to  Tell  Stories  to  Children,"  p.  102. 


164  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

material  to  the  imagination.  The  pupil's  ideas  become  more  concrete 
and  definite,  his  mental  pictures  clearer. 

(c)  Ideal  vat ue.  The  pictures  of  a  great  artist  do  more  than  repre- 
sent facts  ;  they  present  ideals.  They  give  insight  into  life's  spiritual 
meanings,  and  uplift  the  heart  to  higher  levels  of  feeling.  The  Sistine 
Madonna  is  not  a  photograph  of  Jesus  and  His  mother  ;  but  it  is 
more.  We  do  not  know  whether  it  reproduces  the  features  of  Mary  ; 
but  it  does  what  is  of  infinitely  more  moment — it  reveals  to  us  her 
spirit.  It  is  the  eternal  spirit  of  motherhood,  with  all  its  love  and  joy 
in  suffering,  its  beauty  and  dignity.  That  is  no  mere  picture  of  a  par- 
ticular person  ;  it  portrays  that  which  is  universal  to  humanity.  It  is 
the  picture  of  the  Ideal  Mother. 

The  Sunday  school  has  always  used  pictures  ;  but  it.  has  at  times 
relied  too  exclusively  upon  the  first  of  these  values.  It  has  used  such 
pictures  as  would  appeal  to  the  senses,  without  sufficient  regard  for 
their  faithfulness  to  fact  or  for  their  artistic  and  ideal  value.  The  result 
has  been  the  common  use  of  great  charts  or  pictures,  one  for  each 
lesson,  crudely  drawn  and  splotched  over  with  garish  color.  We 
have  now  come,  however,  to  see  that  children  are  just  as  ready  to 
enjoy  good  pictures  as  poor  ones  ;  and  that  we  need  lose  nothing  of 
the  appeal  to  the  senses  by  striving  as  well  for  the  fact  and  ideal  values. 
It  is  now  possible,  moreover,  to  obtain  copies  of  good  pictures  so  cheaply 
that  there  is  no  excuse  for  compelling  children  to  look  at  poor  ones. 

(i)  The  pictures  of  great  artists  are  worth  more  than  any  other, 
for  the  reason  that  they  combine  all  three  values.  Even  a  child  sees 
more  than  faces  when  he  looks  at  such  pictures  as  Hofmann's  "  Christ 
in  the  Temple  with  the  Doctors,"  "  Christ  and  the  Rich  Young  Man," 
and  "  Christ  in  Gethsemane."  He  is  able  to  read  the  heart  beneath. 
We  owe  it  to  our  children  to  bring  them  into  contact  with  the  best 
pictures  as  well  as  with  the  best  books,  and  to  make  them  able  to 
appreciate  the  spiritual  values  of  art.  No  one  has  a  better  oppor- 
tunity to  do  this  than  the  Sunday  school  teacher  ;  and  few  things  that 
he  can  do  will  better  quicken  and  develop  the  spiritual  capacities  of 
the  pupil.  It  is  significant  how  the  world's  greatest  artists  have  turned 
to  the  Bible  for  their  subjects.  The  life  of  Christ  particularly  is  well 
portrayed  by  modern  painters,  whose  conception  of  Him  is  in  general 
better  suited  to  our  present  ways  of  thinking  than  that  of  many  of  the 
old  masters. 

(2)  Photographs  of  Palestine  as  it  exists  to-day,  of  its  people  and 
their  occupations,  help  very  much  to  make  real  to  pupils  the  scenes 
and  circumstances  of  the  Bible  story. 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  METHODS  163 

(3)  Stereoscopic  views  are  better  yet.  Shut  off  by  the  hood  from 
the  world  of  here  and  now,  the  boy  who  looks  through  a  stereoscope 
seems  raally  transported  into  Bible  lands.  The  picture  stands  out  in 
all  the  perspective  of  the  third  dimension,  and  its  figures  even  seem 
life-size. 

(4)  Any  Sunday  school  that  can  afford  it  should  have  a  stereopticon 
for  use  in  reviews,  illustrated  lectures,  and  the  like,  before  the  whole 
school  or  before  a  single  class  at  some  special  meeting.  The  possi- 
bilities of  such  illustration  are  now  greatly  increased  by  the  use  of 
reflectors  which  throw  upon  the  screen  a  page  of  any  book  with  its 
print,  diagrams  or  pictures,  just  as  clearly  as  the  old  lantern  would 
a  prepared  slide.  In  this  way  the  teacher  may  make  available  to  the 
class  a  great  amount  of  material  which  they  would  otherwise  never 
get. 

(5)  Schools  and  colleges  are  just  awaking  to  the  possibilities  of 
moving  pictures  as  an  educational  instrument.  The  Sunday  school, 
too,  would  do  well  to  bring  before  its  pupils  now  and  then  moving 
pictures  of  the  Passion  Play,  of  scenes  in  the  Holy  Land  of  to-day,  of 
scenes  illustrating  missionary  work  in  foreign  lands,  and  the  like. 
The  craze  for  moving  picture  shows  which  has  in  the  past  few  years 
spread  over  the  country  is  but  an  indication  of  the  interest  which 
pupils  are  bound  to  feel  in  pictures  which  actually  bring  life  before 
them. 

6.  Objects  as  illustrative  material  have  both  a  sense  and  a  fact 
value.  In  dealing  with  young  children  especially,  the  appeal  to  the 
senses  is  needed  to  hold  their  attention  and  interest  and  to  make  the 
needed  impression.  For  pupils  of  all  ages,  there  is  great  value  in 
objects  or  models  that  help  to  make  more  real  the  conditions  about 
which  the  class  is  studying.  Relics  of  ancient  times  or  articles  from 
the  Palestine  of  to-day  or  from  mission  fields,  help  to  give  a  definite 
knowledge  that  could  be  gotten  in  no  other  way. 

(1)  We  must  carefully  distinguish,  however,  between  those  objects 
7uhose  relation  to  the  truth  we  teach  is  merely  symbolic,  and  those 
whose  relation  is  real.  A  Roman  coin,  an  old  Greek  lamp,  models 
of  the  temple  or  of  the  agricultural  implements  or  clothes  of  Bible 
times,  a  model  house  to  show  how  Peter  could  go  "up  upon  the 
house  top  to  pray,"  or  how  a  sick  man  could  be  let  down  into  a  room 
from  the  roof — these  have  a  real  relation  to  the  truth.  From  such 
objects  we  get  both  sense  and  fact  values.  But  to  use  a  crown  to 
illustrate  the  "crown  of  life,"  a  magnifying  glass  to  explain  Mary's 
joy  as  expressed  in  the  Magnificat,  a  paper  pattern  and  scissors  as  a 


166  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

symbol  of  Christ  our  pattern,  is  to  appeal  to  the  senses  merely,  and 
to  run  grave  risk  of  a  misapprehension  of  the  truth.  There  is  always 
danger  that  children  will  not  understand  our  figures  of  speech  ;  and 
we  more  than  double  the  danger  when  we  present  the  figure  in  object 
form,  because  of  the  greater  strength  with  which  the  object  itself  will 
enchain  their  interest  and  attention  and  tie  their  minds  down  to  its 
literal  presence  and  quality.* 

(2)  If  symbolic  objects  be  used  as  illustrations — and  there  are  doubt- 
less times  when  it  is  well  to  use  them,  despite  the  danger  involved — 
they  must  conform  to  the  general  principles  of  effective  illustration 
noted  earlier  in  this  chapter.  They  must  be  natural,  not  forced  ;  they 
must  be  more  familiar  than  the  truth  to  be  illustrated  ;  they  must  not 
be  incongruous  or  too  suggestive.  Perhaps  the  most  common  of  all 
"object-lessons  "  is  the  use  of  chemicals  by  which  a  colorless  liquid 
turns  red  when  another  is  poured  into  it,  and  becomes  clear  as  crystal 
again  when  a  third  is  introduced — it  all  being  supposed  to  illustrate 
the  effect  of  sin  upon  the  heart  and  its  purification  by  the  love  of  God. 
But  such  a  procedure  transgresses  the  most  fundamental  principle  of 
teaching.  The  illustration  is  not  more  familiar  than  the  truth  to  be 
illustrated.  It  attempts  to  explain  the  unknown  by  the  unknown.  It 
is  very  apt,  moreover,  to  convey  to  children  a  wrong  implication — 
that  the  operation  of  God's  Spirit  is  as  instantaneous  and  magical  in 
its  character  as  the  change  in  the  liquid  appears  to  them. 

(3)  The  use  of  symbolic  objects  takes  time  and  compels  a  more  or 
less  definite  centering  of  the  whole  lesson  about  them.  Such  an  illus- 
tration is  much  less  economical  than  one  that  is  verbal.  There  is 
always  the  danger  that  the  illustration  may  become  an  end  in  itself 
rather  than  a  means. 

(4)  There  is  a  datiger  that  object  teaching  may  degrade  the  inter- 
ests of  the  children  by  holding  them  to  a  sense  plane.  Children  who 
have  been  taught  too  exclusively  by  objects  become  incapable  of 
appreciating  anything  else.  They  will  always  demand  "something 
interesting,"  else  they  will  not  give  attention. 

"It  had  seemed  to  Miss  Bessie  advisable  that  the  'children 
should  know  something  of  the  world  on  which  they  live,'  and 
for  purposes  of  instruction  she  had  selected  a  geyser  and  a  vol- 
cano as  important— not  to  say  interesting— features  of  land 
structure.     By  means  of  a  rubber  ball  with  a  hole  in  it,  artfully 

*  See  the  address  by  Miss  Williams,  quoted  in  Du  Bois'  "  Point  of  Contact  in 
Teaching,"  pp.  95-99,  from  which  several  of  the  examples  used  above  are  taken. 
Note  also  what  was  said  about  the  child's  symbolism  iu  Wesson  III.  of  this  book. 


ATTENTION  AND  APPERCEPTION  :  METHODS  167 

concealed  in  a  pile  of  sand,  she  had  created  a  geyser,  and  with 
a  bit  of  cotton  soaked  in  alcohol  and  lighted  she  had  simulated 
a  volcano.     We  began  our  work  with  geography  in  ignorance 
of  these  facts      After  a  few  lessons  on  hills,  mountains,  islands, 
capes  and  bays,  the  children  informed  us  that  they  'didn't like 
those  old  things.'     ■  Please,  won't  you  give  us  the  fireworks  ? 
asked  Freddie.    ' Or  the  squirt  ? '  added  Agnes  eagerly. 
7    The  blackboard  is  a  very  important  help,  which  has  been  much 
misunderstood  and  misused.     Teachers  have  often  seemed  to  regard 
it  as  the  puzzle  department  of  the  Sunday  school.     The  real  puzzle  is 
to  understand  how  the  custom  ever  got  started  of  attempting  to  teach 
religious  truths  by  a  jumble  of  symbols,   alliterative  enigmas  and 

The  'true  use  of  the  blackboard  is  "free,  living  and  personal.^ 
A  rapid  descriptive  sketch,  an  outline  map  or  diagram,  an  important 
word  or  principle  written  as  well  as  spoken-such  is  true  blackboard 
illustration,  done  as  the  teacher  talks,  reinforcing  the  impression  of 
ear  with  that  of  eye.  If  possible,  every  class  should  have  its  own 
blackboard  ;  for  it  is  as  a  help  in  actual  teaching  that  it  is  most  needed 
—not  merely  for  announcement,  review  or  ornament. 

*  Carter  :  "  The  Kindergarten  Child-After  the  Kindergarten,"  Atlantic  Monthly 

March,  1899. 
t  Hervey  :  "  Picture  Work,"  p.  85. 


168  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

QUESTIONS 

i.  Why  should  there  be  continuity  in  teaching  ? 

2.  Why  should  the  teacher  study  the  whole  of  a  series  of  lessons 
before  he  begins  to  teach  them  ? 

3.  What  are  the  advantages  of  correlation  of  the  Sunday  school 
lessons  with  the  rest  of  the  pupil's  education  ?  What  are  the  dangers 
to  be  guarded  against  in  such  correlation  ? 

4.  Discuss  the  principles  of  effective  illustration — brought  out  in 
this  chapter. 

5.  What  difficulty  do  we  meet  in,  using  the  illustrations  of  the  Bible 
itself  ? 

6.  When  is  an  illustration  incongruous  ?    When  too  suggestive  ? 

7.  What  is  meant  by  the  statement  that  the  teaching  value  of  the 
story  is  indirect  ?    Why  is  this  true  ? 

8.  What  are  the  principles  of  good  story  telling  set  down  in  this 
chapter  ? 

9.  What  values  do  pictures  have  as  illustrative  material  ? 

10.  What  sorts  of  pictures  are  usable  in  the  Sunday  school  ?  Discuss 
the  value  of  each. 

11.  What  are  the  advantages  of  object  teaching?    What  dangers 
must  be  guarded  against  ? 

12.  What  is  the  distinction  between  objects  whose  relation  to  the 
truth  is  symbolic  and  those  whose  relation  is  real  ? 

13.  Discuss  the  proper  use  of  the  blackboard. 


LESSON  XVIII 
Questions 

There  is  one  other  qualification  of  a  teacher  quite  as  important  as 
to  be  able  to  tell  a  story — to  know  how  to  ask  questions.  By  stories 
and  other  illustrative  material  the  teacher  may  present  the  truth 
clearly  and  vividly,  and  appeal  to  interest  and  imagination,  to  feeling 
and  action  ;  but  it  is  by  questions  that  he  stirs  his  pupils  to  think  it 
over  for  themselves,  to  digest  and  assimilate  it  and  to  make  it  a  per- 
manent mental  possession.  If  the  story  is  the  most  effective  means  of 
presentation,  the  question  is  the  great  instrument  of  association.  It  is 
the  means  by  which  the  teacher  arouses  the  pupil  himself  to  mental 
activity. 

I.  Kinds  of  questions.  Questions  may  best  be  classified  accord- 
ing to  the  use  to  which  they  are  put.     We  may  distinguish  six  kinds  : 

(i)  Preparatioii  questions — those  used  in  the  step  of  preparation. 
They  aim  [a)  to  bring  up  within  the  pupil's  mind  such  ideas  as  he 
may  already  possess  concerning  the  truth  to  be  taught,  or  such  as  will 
enable  him  rightly  to  apprehend  it ;  (b)  to  make  him  feel  the  need  of 
more  knowledge,  and  so  to  arouse  his  interest  and  give  a  motive  for 
the  work  of  the  hour.* 

(2)  Recitation  questions  seek  to  test  the  pupil's  mastery  of  the 
material  assigned  for  study  and  to  bring  out  clearly  its  essential  facts. t 

(3)  Development  questions  seek  to  lead  the  pupil  to  think  about  the 
facts  he  has  learned,  to  inquire  into  their  relations  and  values,  to  infer 
from  them  other  facts  and  truths,  and  to  form  ideas  and  judgments  of 
his  own.  This  is  pre-eminently  the  question  of  the  discussion  method. 
It  deals  with  the  organization  of  lacts.J 

(4)  Review  questions  have  a  twofold  aim  :  (a)  to  freshen  and 
strengthen  impressions  already  made  ;  {b)  to  organize  them  into  a 
larger  mental  whole. 

(5)  Examination  questions  should  serve  (a)  as  a  test  of  the  pupil's 
knowledge  ;  (b)  as  a  motive  to  its  better  organization. 

*  See  the  discussion  of  the  step  of  preparation,  Wesson  XIV.,  Section  5. 
fSee  what  was  said  about  the  recitation  method  in  Wesson  XIII.,  Section  2. 
X  See  the  treatment  of  the  discussion  method  in  Wesson  XIII.,  Section  3,  and  of 
the  step  of  association  in  Wesson  XIV.,  Section  4. 

(169) 


170  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

(6)  Personal  questions  are  those  that  make  a  direct  appeal  to  the 
will,  search  the  heart  and  arouse  the  conscience.  Many  of  Jesus' 
questions  were  such  :  "  But  who  say  ye  that  I  am?"  "  Simon,  son 
of  John,  lovest  thou  me  ? ' ' 

2.  How  to  ask  questions.  Questioning  is  an  art,  and  like  all  arts 
can  be  but  imperfectly  embodied  in  rules.  Yet  there  are  certain 
general  characteristics  of  good  questions  that  may  be  set  down.* 

(i)  The  question  should  be  clear  and  definite.  It  should  ask 
only  one  thing,  and  that  so  directly  that  there  is  no  chance  of  mis- 
take. 

(a)  Avoid  technical  expressions  and  big  words ;  as,  What  are  the 
conditions  of  sanctification,  and  how  does  it  differ  from  regeneration  ? 
Does  the  divinity  of  Jesus  imply  His  impeccability?  In  the  Sunday 
school  at  least,  we  need  to  get  away  from  artificial  and  technical 
terminology.  If  religion  means  to  us  what  it  ought,  we  can  express 
it  in  the  same  language  that  we  use  for  common,  every-day  matters. 
That  is  what  Jesus  did.  "  The  common  people  heard  Him  gladly." 
He  always  drew  the  materials  for  his  teaching  from  the  life  about 
Him.  And  the  apostles  and  evangelists  followed  His  example.  In 
late  years  scholars  have  found  out  that  many  Greek  words  which  were 
cnce  supposed  to  be  peculiar  to  the  New  Testament,  belonged  in  fact 
to  the  language  of  the  common  people,  the  colloquial  Greek  of  the 
day.t  The  Bible  was  written  so  that  the  ordinary  man  could  under- 
stand it. 

(b)  Avoid  figures  of  speech,  unless  the  question  itself  deal  with 
their  explanation.  Use  the  most  simple  and  direct  statement  possible. 
Do  you  think  the  penitent  thief  will  be  present  at  the  marriage  supper 
of  the  Lamb?  In  what  sort  of  ground  did  Paul  sow  the  seed  at 
Corinth? — are  examples  of  questions  made  less  definite  than  they 
might  be,  because  a  figure  of  speech  is  used  to  express  what  could  be 
put  in  literal  terms.  We  make  it  worse,  of  course,  if  we  mix  figures  ; 
as,  How  does  the  Good  Shepherd  wash  away  sin  ? 

(c)  Do  not  ask  questions  that  are  vague  because  they  admit  of  many 
answers.  A  teacher  once  asked,  "What  must  we  do  before  our  sins 
can  be  forgiven?  " — and  a  little  girl  replied  quite  correctly,  "We  must 

*  The  art  of  questioning  has  been  well  treated  by  Sir  Joshua  Fitch  in  the  "Art 
of  Questioning,"  and  by  Professor  De  Garmo,  in  chapter  xiv.  of  "Interest  and 
Education."  We  can  do  little  more  than  attempt  to  apply  to  our  specific  purpose 
the  principles  they  have  brought  out.  De  Garmo's  very  concrete  discussion  is  of 
especial  value. 

t  Deissmann  :  "  I^ight  from  the  Ancient  East,"  pp.  54-142.  See  also  Hastings' 
Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  article  on  "  language  of  the  New  Testament." 


QUESTIONS  171 

sin  first."  Such  a  question  as  How  did  Saul  treat  David?  needs 
qualification.  Put  thus,  it  might  be  answered  in  many  ways  :  Made 
him  court  minstrel,  appointed  him  armor-bearer,  gave  him  his 
daughter  in  marriage,  grew  jealous  of  him,  tried  to  kill  him,  drove 
him  into  outlawry,  swore  to  a  covenant  with  him  at  En-gedi. 

(d)  Avoid  double  questions.  These  may  be  of  various  sorts.  The 
least  objectionable  are  those  which  unite  two  questions^  each  of  which 
is  in  itself  legitimate ;  as,  Of  whom  did  Saul  become  jealous,  and 
why  ?  Ask  both  questions,  but  ask  one  at  a  time.  A  more  serious 
fault  is  the  assumption  as  premise  of  that  which  is  itself  questionable  ; 
as,  Why  cannot  a  man  sin  who  lets  Christ  enter  his  heart  ?  Why  did 
Paul  fail  at  Athens  ?  There  are  prior  questions  here  :  Does  faith  in 
Christ  make  it  impossible  for  a  man  to  sin  ?  Did  Paul  fail  at  Athens? 
Ask  these  first ;  then  the  others  may  rightly  follow.  The  poorest  of 
all  questions  are  those  which  ask  so  much  that  they  give  an  inadequate 
clue  as  to  what  is  asked.  Examples  are  :  Who  killed  a  thousand  men 
with  what  strange  weapon  ?  Who,  in  to-day's  lesson,  was  coming  into 
what  city,  and  how  ?  These  are  not  questions  ;  they  are  conundrums. 
Yet  interrogations  of  this  sort  are  by  no  means  uncommon.  Professor 
De  Garmo  quotes  this  from  a  list  of  examination  questions,  actually 
used  in  a  secondary  school  :  "  Who  chased  whom  around  the  walls  of 
what?"* 

(^)  Do  not  confuse  the  pupil  by  a  multitude  of  words,  by  auxiliary 
clauses  and  parenthetical  explanations.  Example  :  Do  you  think  that 
in  the  days  of  the  Judges,  when  as  you  know  there  was  no  king,  and 
the  Bible  says  that  "  every  man  did  that  which  was  right  in  his  own 
eyes,"  the  Levitical  code  was  in  force  or  any  centralized  worship 
observed,  such  as  that  of  the  tabernacle  is  reported  to  have  been  in 
the  days  of  Moses,  and  that  of  the  temple  became  in  the  later  king- 
dom, especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Gideon  is  said  to  have  set  up 
an  image  in  his  own  house  (you  will  remember,  too,  how  Micah  hired 
a  private  priest,  and  the  Danites  stole  both  his  image  and  his  priest, 
and  also  that  Jephthah  offered  his  own  daughter  as  a  sacrifice,  though 
the  sacrifice  of  children  is  forbidden  both  in  Leviticus  and  in  Deuter- 
onomy) ?  Under  this  head  may  be  included  also  the  habit  referred 
to  in  the  last  chapter,  of  attempting  to  put  life  into  the  teaching  by 
superfluous  remarks  and  playful  familiarity.  Nowhere  is  this  more 
out  of  place  than  in  asking  questions. 

(f)  A  common  source  of  vagueness  is  the  use,  zuithout  qualification, 
of  general  and  indefinite  verbs,  such  as  have,  do,  be,  become,  happen. 

*  De  Garmo  :  "  Interest  and  Education,"  p.  183. 


172  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

Examples  :  What  happens  when  you  tell  a  lie  ?  What  do  you  do  when 
you  go  to  bed  ?  What  did  Abel  have  that  Cain  did  not  ?  What  is  the 
new  name  that  is  promised  to  him  that  overcometh  ?  What  do  we 
become  when  we  are  baptized  ? 

(2)  The  question  should  be  so  put  as  to  stimulate  real  thought. 
The  pupil  should  be  compelled  to  go  to  his  ideas  for  the  answer. 

(a)  Avoid  questio7is  that  suggest  the  answer  in  any  such  way  that 
it  comes  as  the  result  of  the  merely  mechanical  working  of  the  laws 
of  association. 

Yes-and-no  questions  are  usually  to  be  avoided  for  this  reason, 
though  they  are  sometimes  perfectly  legitimate.  The  test  is — do  they 
make  the  pupil  think  ? 

"Nineteen  such  questions  out  of  twenty  carry  their  own  an- 
swers in  them  ;  for  it  is  almost  impossible  to  propose  one  with- 
out revealing,  by  the  tone  and  inflection  of  the  voice,  the  kind 
of  answer  you  expect.  For  example  :  Is  it  right  to  honor  our 
parents  ?  Did  Abraham  show  much  faith  when  he  offered  up 
his  son  ?  Do  you  think  the  author  of  the  Psalms  was  a  good 
man  ?  Were  the  Pharisees  really  lovers  of  truth  ?  Questions 
like  these  elicit  no  thought  whatever  ;  there  are  but  two  possi- 
ble answers  to  each  of  them,  and  of  these  I  am  sure  to  show, 
by  my  manner  of  putting  the  question,  which  one  I  expect. 
Such  questions  should  therefore,  as  a  general  rule,  be  avoided, 
as  they  seldom  serve  any  useful  purpose,  either  in  teaching  or 
examining.  For  every  question,  it  must  be  remembered,  ought 
to  require  an  effort  to  answer  it ;  it  may  be  an  effort  of  memory, 
or  an  effort  of  imagination,  or  an  effort  of  judgment,  or  an  effort 
of  perception  ;  it  may  be  a  considerable  effort  or  it  may  be  a 
slight  one  ;  but  it  must  be  an  effort;  and  a  question  which  chal- 
lenges no  mental  exertion  whatever,  and  does  not  make  the 
learner  think,  is  worth  nothing."* 

"Pumping"  questions  appeal  to  mere  mechanical  memory  or  to 
guessing.  Example  :  James  and  John  were —  ?  Brothers. .  And  they 
were  sons  of  —  ?  Thunder.  No,  they  were  called  that ;  but  they  were 
really  the  sons  of  Z — ?    Zacchasus.     No,  Zeb— ?    Zebedee. 

When  two  or  more  words  go  together  to  form  one  idea,  they  should 
not  be  broken  apart,  putting  one  in  the  question  to  suggest  the  other 
in  the  answer.  Examples  :  What  did  Samuel  offer  when  he  went  to 
Jesse's  home?    Sacrifice.     What  did  Jesus  cast  out  ?    Demons.    What 

*  Fitch:  "  The  Art  of  Questioning,"  pp.  68,  69. 


QUESTIONS  173 

did  Jesus  break  with  His  disciples  i    Bread.     What  did  He  give  first  ? 
Thanks. 

The  question  should  not  be  asked  in  the  same  words  that  were  used 
for  the  original  presentation  of  the  truth  asked  for ;  nor  should  the 
teacher  ever  be  content  to  get  back  an  answer  in  the  same  words  that 
he  used  to  impart  it.  Such  an  exercise  proves  that  the  pupil  caught 
the  words  of  the  teaching,  but  it  does  not  show  that  he  got  the  idea. 
Put  the  question  in  terms  that  cannot  subconsciously  suggest  the 
words  needed  to  meet  it ;  insist  that  the  pupil  answer  in  language  of 
his  own.  One  application  of  this  principle  must  be  made  explicit.  Do 
not  use  the  words  of  Scripture  in  your  questions.  Sir  Joshua  Fitch 
gives  so  good  an  illustration  that  we  must  quote  it  at  length  : 

(i  A  certain  man  went  down  front  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  arid  fell 
among  thieves,  which  stripped  him  of  his  raiment,  and  wounded 
him,  and  departed,  leaving  him  half  dead.  Some  teachers 
would  proceed  to  question  thus  :  Who  is  this  parable  about  ?  A 
certain  man.  Where  did  he  go  from  ?  Jerusalem.  Where  to? 
Jericho.  What  sort  of  people  did  he  fall  among  ?  Thieves. 
What  did  they  do  with  his  raiment  ?  Stripped  him  of  it.  What 
did  they  do  with  the  man  himself  ?  Wounded  him.  In  what 
state  did  they  leave  him  ?  Half  dead.  Observe  here  that  the 
teacher  has  covered  the  whole  area  of  the  narrative,  and  pro- 
posed a  question  on  every  fact ;  so  far  he  has  done  well.  But  it 
is  to  be  noticed  that  every  question  was  proposed  as  nearly  as 
possible  in  the  words  of  the  book,  and  required  for  its  answer 
one  (generally  but  one)  of  those  words.  Now  it  is  very  easy 
for  a  boy  or  girl,  while  the  echoes  of  the  Bible  narrative  just 
read  still  linger  in  the  ear,  to  answer  every  such  question  by  rote 
merely,  with  scarcely  any  effort  of  memory,  and  no  effort  of 
thought  whatever.  .  .  .  Let  us  go  over  the  same  subject 
again,  first  introducing  it  by  one  or  two  preliminary  questions  ; 
for  example  :  Who  used  these  words  ?  To  whom  were  they 
spoken  ?  Why  were  they  uttered  ?  Repeat  the  question  which 
the  lawyer  asked.  What  is  the  parable  about?  A  man  who 
zvent  on  a  journey.  What  do  you  call  a  man  who  goes  on  a  jour- 
ney ?  A  traveler.  In  what  country  was  the  man  traveling  ? 
Judea.  Let  us  trace  his  route  on  the  map.  In  what  direction 
was  he  traveling?  Eastward.  Through  what  kind  of  country? 
(Here  the  teacher's  own  information  should  supply  a  fact  or 
two  about  its  physical  features.)     What  should  you   suppose 


174  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  vSERIES 

from  the  lesson  was  the  state  of  the  country  at  that  time? 
Thinly  peopled ;  road  unfrequented y  etc.  How  do  you  know 
this?  Because  he  fell  amo)ig  thieves.  Give  another  expression 
for  '  fell  among. '  Happened  to  meet  with.  Another  word  for 
'thieves.'  Robbers.  How  did  the  robbers  treat  this  traveler  ? 
They  stripped  him  of  his  raiment.  What  does  the  word  '  rai- 
ment' mean  ?  Clothes.  Besides  robbing  him  of  his  clothes, 
what  else  did  they  do?  Wounded  him.  Explain  that  word. 
Injured  him ;  hurt  him  very  much,  etc.  How  do  you  know 
from  the  text  that  he  was  much  hurt  ?  They  left  him  half  dead. 
They  almost  killed  him.  Now  observe  here  that  the  aim  has 
been  twofold.  First,  not  to  suggest  the  answer  by  the  form  of 
the  question.  Hence  another  sort  of  language  has  been  adopted, 
and  the  children  have  therefore  been  made  to  interpret  the  Bib- 
lical language  into  that  of  ordinary  life.  Secondly,  not  to  be 
satisfied  with  single  words  as  answers,  especially  with  the  par- 
ticular word  which  is  contained  in  the  narrative  itself,  but  always 
to  translate  it  into  one  more  familiar. ' '  * 

(b)  Be  careful  not  to  encourage  guessing.  Questions  that  suggest 
their  own  answers  are  one  extreme  ;  questions  so  vague  that  the 
answer  must  be  guessed  at  are  the  other.  Either  is  destructive  of  real 
thought.  Look  carefully  to  the  form  of  the  question.  Make  it  perfectly 
definite  and  unequivocal.  It  should  permit  of  but  one  correct  answer. 
Yet  if  that  answer  be  not  forthcoming,  it  is  idle  to  keep  putting  the 
question  in  the  hope  that  repetition  may  coax  it  out.  And  it  is  worse 
than  idle  to  reject  an  answer  that  is  honest  and  partly  right,  just  be- 
cause it  does  not  chance  to  be  the  one  of  which  you  are  thinking. 
Teachers  exist  who  have  been  known  to  say,  "Yes,  you  are  right ; 
but  it  is  not  the  answer  that  I  have  in  mind."  "  Yes,  that  is  true  ;  but 
it  is  not  what  I  meant."  Pupils  are  not  mind  readers.  Make  your 
question  express  what  you  mean  ;  do  not  compel  them  to  guess  at  it. 
The  class  so  treated  will  soon  get  into  the  habit,  when  a  question  is 
asked,  of  wondering  what  the  teacher  wants  them  to  say,  instead  of 
trying  to  answer  what  he  .really  does  ask.  And  when  that  state  has 
been  reached,  the  teacher  had  better  quit  questioning  and  examine 
himself. 

We  dare  never  forget  that  we  ask  questions,  not  just  for  sake  of 
getting  correct  answers,  but  for  sake  of  leading  the  pupil  to  think,  to 
know  and  understand  the  truth.     A  wrong  answer  is  often  more  useful 

*  Fitch  :  "The  Art  of  Questioning,"  pp.  63-65. 


QUESTIONS  175 

than  a  right  one.  If  it  reveals  the  pupil's  real  thought  about  the 
matter  in  hand,  and  so  shows  us  his  misconception  of  the  truth,  it  is  of 
far  more  value  than  a  perfectly  correct  guess  or  veneer  of  memory.  It 
enables  us  to  diagnose  the  case.  It  gives  us  insight  into  the  pupil's 
need,  and  we  can  set  to  work  to  meet  it. 

(c)  Give  the  pupil  a  chance  to  think  for  himself .  Let  him  answer 
questions  in  his  own  way. 

"  One  should  refrain  from  tripping  the  pupil  with  disconcert- 
ing questions.  A  race  over  obstacles  may  be  diverting,  but  it 
does  not  conduce  to  steady  advance.  It  is  even  better  to  per- 
mit the  pupil  to  blunder  through  to  the  end  of  his  recitation  than 
to  interrupt  him  perpetually  with  questions  calculated  to  obstruct 
the  current  of  his  thought.  Sometimes  teachers  are  so  impatient 
to  obtain  immediate  results  that  they  find  it  impossible  to 
wait."* 

Such  over-questioning  defeats  its  own  end.  It  takes  away  the  pupil's 
self-activity.  It  weakens  his  power  of  thought  and  expression.  It 
makes  him  dependent  upon  the  continual  stimulus  of  questions. 

(3)  Questions  should  deal  with  essentials.  For  sake  of  per- 
spective, do  not  ask  for  unimportant  details.  To  ask  a  question 
emphasizes  the  thing  asked  for.  It  becomes  the  center  of  thought  for 
the  moment.  It  gets  impressed  upon  the  pupil's  mind  and  acquires 
dignity  and  importance  in  his  eyes.  It  is  one  of  the  chief  functions  of 
the  question,  therefore,  to  direct  attention  to  the  salient  facts  of  the 
lesson  and  to  guide  the  thought  of  the  pupil  to  its  essential  truths. 

The  question  itself,  moreover,  should  have  apperceptive  and  associ- 
ative value.  The  question  and  its  answer  should  be  worth  putting 
together.  It  is  possible  to  ask  about  an  important  fact  in  a  very  unim- 
portant way.  For  example  :  What  did  Jesus  do  next?  What  truth  do 
we  find  in  the  next  verse?  What  story  did  Jesus  tell  in  to-day's 
lesson  ?  What  miracle  was  performed  in  last  Sunday's  lesson  ?  What 
important  truth  does  the  editor  bring  out  in  the  practical  suggestions 
at  the  bottom  of  the  page  ?  Such  questions  as  these  are  formal  and 
meaningless.  The  facts  they  point  toward  may  be  of  vital  impor- 
tance ;  but  what  they  actually  ask  about  those  facts  is  not  worth  men- 
tioning, much  less  remembering. 

The  fitting  together  of  question  and  answer  is  a  golden  opportunity 
to  make  an  association.  Interest  is  alert,  attention  centered  upon  its 
problem,  the  mind  active.     It  is  the  time  to  put  together  the  things  we 

*  De  Garmo  :  "Interest  and  Education,"  p.  203. 


176  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

would  have  stay  together  in  the  pupil's  mind.  But  no  teacher  is  fool- 
ish enough  to  want  his  pupils  to  hold  the  idea  of  "to-day's  lesson  "  in 
memory  together  with  the  story  of  the  Good  Samaritan,  or  to  preserve 
the  thought  that  it  was  on  the  bottom  of  the  page  that  a  certain  truth 
was  brought  out.  He  is  wasting  energy,  therefore,  and  missing  op- 
portunities, to  put  such  questions  at  all. 

Question  and  answer  should  be  parts  of  a  single  whole  of  meaning. 
They  should  be  worth  putting  together  and  keeping  together.  The 
question  should  supply  the  one  term,  the  answer  the  other,  of  an  asso- 
ciation that  has  permanent  value.  What  did  Jesus  do  when  He  saw 
that  His  disciples  would  not  wash  one  another's  feet  ?  What  story  did 
He  tell  when  a  lawyer  asked  Him  whom  to  consider  a  neighbor? 
What  miracle  did  He  perform  at  a  wedding  in  Canaof  Galilee?  What 
great  truth  does  the  story  of  the  Sower  bring^  out  ? — are  forms  that 
have  associative  value. 

(4)  Questions  should  be  put  in  logical  order.  This  is  only  to 
say  that  each  should  fall  into  its  place  in  the  development  of  the  les- 
son. All  that  has  been  said  concerning  the  necessity  of  a  lesson  plan 
applies  as  well  to  the  questions  a  teacher  asks,  as  to  the  truths  he 
means  to  bring  out  or  the  illustrative  material  he  uses.  Each  question 
should  grow  out  of  what  went  before  it,  and  lead  up  to  what  comes 
after.  The  whole  should  issue  in  a  coherent  presentation  of  the  truth. 
It  is  harder  to  keep  to  the  point,  of  course,  when  questions  are  asked 
and  the  discussion  of  the  hour  is  live  and  generally  cooperative,  than 
it  would  be  if  the  teacher  were  to  do  all  the  work  and  simply  deliver  a 
carefully  prepared  lecture.     But  it  can  be  done. 

(5)  Questions  should  be  so  put  as  to  keep  the  whole  class  in- 
terested and  at  work.  Aside  from  their  content,  this  depends  upon 
a  few  simple  rules  of  method  : 

(a)  Do  not  rely  upon  concert  answers.  It  is  one  of  the  surest  ways 
not  to  keep  the  whole  class  at  work.  You  must  bring  the  questions 
home  individually.     Call  upon  particular  pupils  to  answer. 

{b)  Ask  the  question  first,  then  call  upon  the  one  who  is  to  answer. 
Each  member  of  the  class  should  feel  that  the  question  is  addressed  to 
him,  since  he  may  be  called  upon  to  answer  it. 

(c)  Call  upon  particular  pupils  several  times  i?i  the  course  of  a  single 
recitation.  Do  not  let  a  pupil  feel  that  after  he  has  answered  his 
question,  made  his  report  or  discussed  his  topic,  his  work  is  over  for 
the  day. 

{d)  Do  not  repeat  a  question  if  the  pupil  failed  to  understand  it  be- 
cause of  inattention.      Go  to  another  for  the  answer.      Even  if  the 


QUESTIONS  177 

failure  is  due  to  inability  to  understand  its  meaning,  it  is  best  to  let 
someone  else  answer  ;  then  recast  and  explain  it  if  necessary. 

(e)  Do  not  repeat  the  pupil's  answer.  The  class  should  be  trained 
to  pay  as  careful  attention  to  one  another's  answers  as  to  the  teacher's 
questions  and  explanations. 

{/)  Do  not  get  into  the  habit  of  calling  most  often  upon  your  best 
pupils,  and  letting  the  weaker  sit  idle.  We  face  a  dilemma  here.  The 
weaker  pupils  need  the  questions  most ;  yet  when  we  call  upon  them 
the  class  hour  drags  and  the  discussion  loses  its  interest.  We  need 
the  help  of  the  brighter  pupils  to  keep  things  moving,  and  they  de- 
serve the  chance  to  contribute  to  the  development  of  the  truth  ;  yet  we 
must  not  neglect  the  weaker. 

(g)  Do  not  let  pupils  get  into  the  habit  of  failing  to  ansiver  your 
questions,  and  become  content  to  fail.  Never  give  one  up,  or  let  him 
feel  that  his  case  is  hopeless.  Keep  at  him  till  you  find  a  "point  of 
contact."  Your  work  is,  like  that  of  any  teacher,  individual.  You 
ought  never  be  content  with  only  the  ninety  and  nine. 

(6)  The  questions  should  maintain  the  social  motive  of  the 
hour.  We  have  seen  that  the  ideal  method  of  teaching  is  cooperative,* 
and  that  the  pupil's  expression  of  that  which  is  within  him  depends 
upon  the  social  situation  in  which  he  finds  himself. f  In  the  next 
chapter  we  shall  consider  the  class  as  a  social  institution.  There  is 
need  here  only  to  mention  the  bearing  of  this  social  motive  upon 
questions. 

{a)  Asking  and  answering  questions  should  be  no  formal  or  arti- 
ficial exercise.  It  should  express///*'  natural  give  and  take  of  social 
cooperation  in  the  discovery  and  discussion  of  the  truth.  It  follows  that 
you  ought  to  do  all  you  can  to  encourage  freedom  of  thought  and  ex- 
pression. You  will  respect  the  pupil's  answers,  if  they  be  sincere. 
You  will  not  meet  with  ridicule  or  impatient  sarcasm  the  blunders  of  a 
boy  who  is  really  trying.  You  will  recognize,  moreover,  that  pupils 
too  have  a  right  to  ask  questions,  and  will  do  your  best  honestly  and 
squarely  to  meet  their  difficulties. 

{b)  To  ask  questions  from  a  printed  list  in  the  text-book,  or  even  to 
read  off  questions  that  you  have  yourself  prepared,  is  to  fail  unpardon- 
ably.  You  ought  to  be  able  to  look  into  the  eyes  of  your  pupils,  and 
to  talk  with  them  as  a  man  with  his  friends.  This  does  not  mean  that 
you  need  not  prepare  questions.  You  ought  to  study  carefully,  not 
simply  the  lesson  itself,  but  how  best  to  question  your  class  about  it. 

*  Iyesson  XIII.,  Sections  2,  3  and  4. 
t  Wesson  XV.,  Section  1. 

12 


178  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

And  it  is  well  to  write  out  some  of  the  questions,  that  you  may  get 
them  clearly  in  mind.  But  all  this  must  be  done  beforehand.  Leave 
your  notes  behind  when  you  come  to  the  class.  Let  no  paper  come 
between  you  and  your  pupils.  Better  to  make  a  few  mistakes  in  the 
course  of  teaching  that  is  live  and  personal  than  to  be  faultlessly 
logical  because  mechanical. 

(c)  The  social  motive  gives  us  a  concrete  test  for  the  application  of 
our  rules.  Like  all  others,  they  have  exceptions.  "  It  is  too  much  to 
demand  a  complete  sentence  for  every  answer,  for  what  is  good  form 
in  social  intercourse  is  not  bad  form  in  the  school-room."*  Not  all 
yes-and-no  questions  are  illegitimate.  The  test  is  always,  are  we 
maintaining  a  real  exchange  of  ideas,  and  giving  expression  to  them 
in  genuine  social  ways  ? 

3.  Reviews.  All  Sunday  schools  have  review  Sundays  ;  but  not 
nearly  all  teachers  know  how  to  use  them.  The  common  mistake  is 
to  use  the  review  simply  to  refresh  the  pupil's  memory.  But  mere 
repetition  is  not  review.  It  is  for  the  sake  of  organization  and  per- 
spective that  we  look  back  over  the  lessons  of  a  series.  The  pupil, 
having  gotten  the  whole,  is  now  able  to  see  the  parts  in  right  relation. 
He  can  now  understand  the  bearing  of  particular  events  and  lessons 
upon  one  another,  and  is  prepared  to  unify  and  systematize  his  ideas. 

Any  method  of  review  that  will  accomplish  this  work  of  organization 
is  legitimate.  It  will  not  be  accomplished  by  a  mere  recital  of  the  title, 
golden  text,  chief  events  and  ' '  central  truth ' '  of  each  lesson  in  turn. 
It  may  be  by  a  talk  by  teacher  or  superintendent,  illustrated  by  black- 
board, stereopticon  or  pictures.  It  may  be  by  assigning  questions  or 
topics  to  pupils,  and  discussing  their  reports.  It  may  be  by  getting 
pupils  to  make  out  their  own  outline  of  the  series,  or  to  write  a  short 
history  of  the  period  covered,  a  little  drama  representing  some  of  its 
events,  or  an  essay  upon  some  assigned  topic  that  presupposes  an 
intelligent  knowledge  of  the  whole.  It  may  be  by  giving  them  an 
examination.  The  ingenuity  of  the  teacher  will  devise  a  hundred 
ways  to  engage  the  interest  of  his  class  in  a  review,  if  only  he  once 
gets  the  idea  that  it  is  for  organization  rather  than  for  repetition.  In- 
deed, if  the  teacher  has  rightly  used  the  principle  of  continuity  through- 
out the  series,  there  is  no  line  to  be  drawn  between  the  methods  of 
every  lesson  and  those  of  review.  The  review  simply  completes  the 
work  which  he  has  been  trying  to  do  every  Sunday. 

4.  Examinations  are  so  much  misunderstood  and  misused  in  public 
school  and  college  that  most  teachers  do  not  even  think  of  their  use  in 

*  De  Garmo  :  "  Interest  and  Education,"  p.  193. 


QUESTIONS  179 

the  Sunday  school.  Their  function  is  conceived  to  be  that  merely  of  • 
testing  the  pupil's  knowledge.  But  if  this  were  their  only  value,  they 
might  well  be  dispensed  with.  Any  teacher  can  tell  without  them 
what  progress  his  pupil  has  been  making,  what  work  he  is  prepared 
to  do  next,  and  so  whether  he  deserves  promotion.  If  a  teacher 
cannot,  there  is  something  wrong  with  him. 

The  true  function  of  the  examination,  like  that  of  the  review,  is  the 
organization  of  the  pupil's  knozuledge.  The  examination  is  given,  not 
for  the  teacher's  sake,  but  for  the  pupil's.  It  supplies  a  motive  for 
thorough  work  and  a  stimulus  to  final  organization,  that  can  be 
secured  in  no  other  way.  And  if  the  examination  questions  be  rightly 
put,  they  in  themselves  constitute  points  of  view  which  almost  compel 
a  true  perspective. 

"The  function  of  the  examination  as  a  test  of  the  pupil's 
knowledge  is  not  of  paramount  importance,  but  its  function 
as  an  organizing  agency  of  knozuledge  is  supreme.  .  .  .  The 
virtue  of  the  examination  lies  in  its  power  to  force  strenuous 
mental  effort  to  the  task  of  organizing  a  large  body  of  facts  and 
principles  into  a  coherent  system.  This  is  the  standard  by 
which  examination  questions  should  be  set.  They  should  be 
large  and  comprehensive,  so  formulated  that  they  will  bring  out 
and  exercise,  not  the  memory  for  details,  but  the  capacity  to 
grasp  large  masses  of  knowledge  and  weld  the  separate  facts 
and  principles  into  systematic  unities."  * 

If  this  be  the  function  of  the  written  examination,  it  is  as  much 
needed  in  the  Sunday  school  as  in  the  public  school.  Indeed,  it  is 
more  needed.  "Just  because  the  public  school  can  use  certain 
methods  which  are  impracticable  in  the  Sunday  school  for  securing 
faithful  work  day  by  day,  it  could  conceivably  more  easily  than  the 
Sunday  school  dispense  with  examinations."  t 

We  need  not  fear  that  examinations  will  be  unpopular  and  drive 
pupils  from  school,  if  we  administer  them  with  a  degree  of  common 
sense. 

"  At  first,  at  least,  the  examination  maybe  made  optional,  no 
pupil  being  obliged  to  take  them,  but  all  being  encouraged  to 
do  so.  .  .  .  The  examination  should  not  cover  a  long  period, 
probably  not  to  exceed  three  months,  though  when  the  system 

*  Bagley  ;  "  The  Educative  Process,"  pp.  333,  334. 

t  Burton  and  Mathews  :  ''Principles  and  Ideals  for  the  Sunday  School,"  p.  158. 


180  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

is  fairly  under  way  an  annual  examination  might  be  given  for 
those  who  are  willing  to  take  it.  If  the  lessons  call  for  written 
work  each  week,  the  work  thus  done  week  by  week  should  be 
taken  into  account  in  the  examination.  The  quarterly  examin- 
ation should  not  be  a  mere  test  of  memory.  Its  educational 
purpose  should  be  distinctly  kept  in  mind.  If  the  questions  are 
rightly  framed,  so  as  to  constitute  a  real  review  of  the  main 
features  of  the  quarter's  work,  they  may  very  properly  be  put 
into  the  hands  of  the  pupils  on  one  Sunday,  to  be  returned 
with  the  answers  a  week  later,  the  pupils  being  instructed  to 
make  use  of  the  Bible  and  any  other  accessible  sources  of  infor- 
mation, personal  help  only  being  excluded."  * 

Examination  papers  should  always  be  carefully  corrected,  graded 
and  handed  back.  Some  sort  of  recognition  should  be  given  to  those 
who  pass  examinations  creditably — a  list  announced  or  posted,  pro- 
motion to  a  higher  class,  a  certificate  given  for  each  examination 
passed,  or  a  diploma  at  the  completion  of  a  course  covering  several 
years  of  work.  So  conducted,  examinations  will  be  welcomed  by 
most  pupils.  And  they  will  help  wonderfully  to  rescue  the  educational 
work  of  the  Sunday  school  from  the  indefiniteness,  lack  of  motive  and 
low  level  of  intellectual  vigor  which  too  often  characterize  it. 

*  Burton  and  Mathews  :  "  Principles  and  Ideals  for  the  Sunday  School,"  pp.  159, 
160. 


QUESTIONS  181 

QUESTIONS 

i.  Classifv  questions  according  to  the  use  to  which  they  are  put. 
State  the  aim  of  each  class  of  questions. 

2.  What  six  great  requirements  must  good  questioning  con- 
form to  ? 

3.  Why  should  technical  expressions  and  big  words  be  avoided  in 
putting  questions  ? 

4.  Why  should  the  question  contain  no  figures  of  speech  ? 

5.  Illustrate  the  different  forms  of  double  questions.  Show  why 
each  is  objectionable. 

6.  What  are  some  of  the  ways  in  which  a  question  may  wrongly 
suggest  its  own  answer? 

7.  In  Fitch's  illustration  of  a  lesson  about  the  parable  of  the  Good 
Samaritan,  point  out  the  differences  between  the  right  and  the  wrong 
way  of  asking  questions. 

8.  What  are  some  of  the  ways  in  which  the  teacher  may  encourage 
his  pupils  to  guess  at  answers  to  his  questions  ? 

9.  What  do  you  understand  by  the  requirement  that  a  question 
should  have  apperceptive  and  associative  value  ? 

10.  Describe  some  devices  of  method  by  which  the  teacher  may 
retain  the  interest  and  attention  of  the  whole  class  as  he  asks  ques- 
tions. 

11.  Why  should  the  pupil  be  permitted  to  ask  questions  ? 

12.  Why  is  it  wrong  to  ask  questions  from  a  printed  or  written  list? 

13.  What  is  the  function  of  the  review  ?  What,  then,  should  be  the 
character  of  review  questions  ? 

14.  What  is  the  function  of  the  examination  ?  Discuss  the  utility 
and  desirability  of  examinations  in  the  work  of  the  Sunday  school. 


LESSON  XIX 
The  Class  as  a  Social  Institution 

Now,  as  we  approach  the  end  of  our  course  of  study,  it  is  time  to 
put  to  ourselves  again  the  question  with  which  we  began  :  What  is  our 
aim  as  Sunday  school  teachers  ?  What  is  the  work  we  are  set  to  do  ? 
We  then  answered  :  It  is  both  to  instruct  and  to  train  our  pupils,  that 
zve  may  help  them  develop  into  the  right  sort  of  persons.  That  answer 
remains  true.  But  it  is  in  itself  too  general.  We  are  now  ready  to 
inquire  more  particularly  into  its  meaning,  and  to  get  a  more  definite 
conception  of  just  what  it  involves. 

Three  conceptions  of  the  Sunday  school  have  been  held  in 
recent  years.  They  can  be  no  more  concretely  set  forth  than  in  the 
"Survey  of  the  Present  Sunday  School  World,"  presented  to  the  sec- 
ond annual  convention  of  the  Religious  Education  Association  : 

"  Three  ideals  seem  to  dominate  the  Sunday  school  world — 
the  social,  the  educational  and  the  evangelistic.  Schools  are 
classified  as  working  under  any  one  of  these  three,  not  by  the 
entire  absence  of  the  other  two,  but  by  their  emphasis  upon  one 
of  these  ideals. 

"  (i )  The  social  ideal  regards  the  school  as  an  aggregation  of 
persons,  a  field  for  the  operation  of  movements  of  various  kinds 
that  will  interest  the  members.  Success  is  measured  by  numeri- 
cal standards.  Some  of  the  largest  schools  in  the  world  belong 
to  this  class,  though,  as  a  whole,  it  includes  the  fewest  in  num- 
ber. There  is  more  or  less  educational  and  evangelistic  work, 
but  these  schools  are  not  organized  about  either  of  these  ideals. 
The  school  itself,  with  its  own  esprit  de  corps,  is  the  main 
thing. 

"(2)  The  educational  ideal  claims  an  increasing  number  of 
schools.  They  are  organized  with  reference  to  the  study  of  all 
matters  bearing  upon  the  religious  and  moral  welfare  of  the 
scholar,  according  to  the  most  improved  modern  methods.  In- 
tellectual equipment  is  here  a  prime  consideration.  Into  such 
schools  the  paid  teacher  has  already  made  his  advent.  They 
strive  to  profit  religiously  by  the  advance  of  general  educational 

(182) 


THE  CLASS  AS  A  SOCIAL  INSTITUTION  183 

movements,  are  found  chiefly  in  centers  of  intellectual  activity, 
and  are  officered  and  instructed  by  those  whose  personal  inter- 
est in  the  educational  aspects  of  religion  is  very  keen. 

"(3)  The  evangelistic  ideal  is  overwhelmingly  ascendant. 
Its  aim  is  to  secure  a  spiritual  experience  for  the  scholar  con- 
forming to  the  standards  of  the  church  with  which  the  school  is 
connected,  to  lead  'him  to  the  public  confession  of  that  experi- 
ence according  to  the  rites  of  the  church  controlling  the  school, 
and  to  train  him  in  the  life  to  which  he  has  thus  been  intro- 
duced. Within  this  ideal  there  is  a  varying  degree  of  emphasis 
on  the  study  of  the  Bible.  In  some  schools  (a)  the  educational 
element  is  reduced  to  a  minimum  as  an  effective  factor  in  the 
experience  sought.  The  teachers  are  rather  preachers,  or 
dealers  in  second-hand  homiletics.  Other  energies  than  the 
scholar's  personal  search  for  Scripture  truth  are  impressed  into 
service.  In  other  schools  (b)  the  strongest  emphasis  is  laid 
upon  the  honest  study  of  the  Scriptures  as  the  most  effective 
method  of  bringing  the  instrument  of  the  Holy  Spirit  into  direct 
and  transforming  contact  with  the  life  of  the  scholar.  This 
study  is  depended  upon  as  the  most  efficient  discipline  in  help- 
ing the  pupil  to  realize  and  enthrone  the  religious  element  of  his 
nature.  Between  these  two  extremes  there  are  (c)  schools  that 
greatly  vary  in  their  reliance  upon  Bible  study  in  its  relation  to 
what  is  commonly  called  conversion. 

"There  are  indications  that  the  social,  educational  and  evan- 
gelistic ideals  will  be  combined  with  careful  regard  to  their 
proper  relation  and  proportion  in  the  school  of  the  future. 
Each  asserts  an  aspect  of  the  school  that  is  real  and  essential. 
But  the  best  work  can  be  done  only  when  the  ideal  is  sharply 
defined."  * 

In  our  study  thus  far  we  have  laid  all  emphasis  upon  the  educational 
ideal  and  the  distinctly  educational  type  of  the  evangelistic  ideal.  Our 
fundamental  conviction  has  been  that  the  Sunday  school  is  a  school. t 
It  is  now  time  to  correct  the  seeming  one-sidedness  of  this  position. 
The  Sunday  school  is  indeed  a  social  institution  and  an  evangelistic 
agency,  as  well  as  a  school.  A  true  interpretation  of  its  educational 
character  must  include  the  social  and   evangelistic  motives.      But 

♦Bitting:  "  Survey  of  the  Present  Sunday  School  World,"     Proceedings  of  the 
Religious  Education  Association,  1904,  p.  218. 
fSee  Wesson  XII.,  Section  1. 


184  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

neither  the  social  nor  the  evangelistic  ideal  is  rightly  conceived  in  the 
statement  above  quoted.  Neither  is  there  stated  in  terms  sufficiently 
objective*  This  thesis  we  shall  seek  to  explain  and  justify  in  this 
chapter  and  the  next.  In  this  we  shall  think  of  the  Sunday  school  as 
a  social  institution,  and  in  the  next,  of  its  evangelistic  work. 

i.  A  new  social  consciousness  is  characteristic  of  the  life  of  our 
day. 

(i)  We  have  come  to  see  that  human  nature  is  essentially  social. 
Aristotle  said  that  "  man  is  by  nature  a  political  animal"  ;  Paul,  that 
"none  of  us  liveth  to  himself."  But  the  conditions  of  modern  life 
have  given  to  these  words  a  depth  of  meaning  that  they  could  not 
have  for  the  men  of  an  earlier  time.  Men  were  never  so  interde- 
pendent as  now.  The  differentiation  and  specialization  of  industry, 
the  massing  of  population  in  great  cities  and  the  ever-closer  knitting  of 
interests  the  world  over  by  commerce  and  quick  communication, 
make  it  impossible  for  one  by  himself  to  gain  any  fullness  of  life.  It  is 
only  in  association  with  his  fellows  that  man  becomes  man.  We  are 
indeed  ''every  one  members  one  of  another." 

(2)  The  conscience  of  the  world  has  awakened  to  the  duty  of 
social  betterment.  However  true  it  may  be  that  society  is  what  indi- 
viduals make  it,  it  is  no  less  true  that  individuals  are  what  society 
shapes  them  to  be.  Within  our  own  day  this  thought  has  become  a 
conviction.  It  has  aroused  men  to  new  duties.  We  are  living  in  the 
midst  of  a  great  ethical  revival.  We  have  come  to  feel  moral  responsi- 
bility, not  simply  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  and  sick  and  oppressed,  but 
for  the  social  conditions  that  cause  poverty  and  disease  and  permit  in- 
justice. We  are  not  content  merely  to  heal  the  consumptive  ;  we 
wage  war  against  tuberculosis,  the  preventable  disease.  We  do  not 
stop  with  sending  nurses  to  care  for  the  sick  babies  of  the  tenements  ; 
we  work  for  sanitary  homes,  pure  milk  and  public  playgrounds.  We 
seek,  not  merely  to  save  the  sinner,  but  to  strike  at  the  roots  of  the 
sin  ;  not  merely  to  reform  the  criminal,  but  to  prevent  his  ever  being 
led  into  crime.  These  are  days  when  life  is  indeed  worth  the  living. 
Human  interests  have  immeasurably  widened  and  deepened  within  a 
generation.  Opportunities  for  service  to  God  and  to  humanity  are 
greater  than  ever  before.  The  moral  horizon  has  broadened.  To  the 
beauty  of  individual  goodness  the  vision  of  the  Spirit  has  added  the 

*  This  statement  must  not  be  construed  as  a  criticism  of  Dr.  Bitting  or  his  posi- 
tion. His  task,  in  a  "  Survey  of  the  Present  Sunday  School  World,"  was  to  picture 
actual  conditions  ;  and  his  picture  is  true.  Our  point  is  that  both  the  social  and 
the  evangelistic  ideal  ought  to  be  more  objectively  conceived. 


THE  CLASS  AS  A  SOCIAL  INSTITUTION  185 

sweep  and  perspective  of  social  righteousness.     We  are  beginning  to 
understand  what  Jesus  meant  by  the  kingdom  of  God. 

(3)  Education  to-day  is  socially  motived.  The  last  decade  has  wit- 
nessed the  " socialization  of  the  school." 

{a)  The  ultimate  aim  of  education  is  the  development  of  socially 
efficient  men  and  women.* 

"  Education  is  the  fundamental  method  of  social  progress  and 
reform.  .  .  .  The  community's  duty  to  education  is,  therefore, 
its  paramount  moral  duty.  By  law  and  punishment,  by  social 
agitation  and  discussion,  society  can  regulate  and  form  itself  in 
a  more  or  less  haphazard  and  chance  way.  But  through  educa- 
tion society  can  formulate  its  own  purposes,  can  organize  its 
own  means  and  resources,  and  thus  shape  itself  with  definite- 
ness  and  economy  in  the  direction  in  which  it  wishes  to  move. 
.  .  .  The  teacher  is  engaged,  not  simply  in  the  training  of  indi- 
viduals, but  in  the  formation  of  the  proper  social  life.  ...  I  be- 
lieve that  in  this  way  the  teacher  always  is  the  prophet  of  the 
true  God  and  the  usherer  in  of  the  true  kingdom  of  God."  t 

(6)  The  method  of  education  is  determined  by  its  social  motive. 
"We  learn  by  doing."  Since  the  school  is  meant  to  develop  social 
efficiency  and  the  spirit  of  helpfulness,  its  methods  must  appeal  to  the 
social  instincts  of  the  pupil.  It  must  find  things  to  do  that  will  enlist 
his  cooperation,  and  provide  social  situations  that  will  call  forth  his 
latent  powers.  It  must  treat  him,  not  as  a  servant,  but  as  a  son.  It  is 
this  change  of  atmosphere  and  method,  quite  as  much  as  that  of  sub- 
ject-matter taught,  that  differentiates  the  public  school  of  to-day  from 
that  of  a  generation  ago.  In  place  of  the  more  formal  of  the  old 
studies,  there  are  manual  training  and  domestic  science ;  instead  of 
the  rigid  "  position"  which  the  teachers  of  yesterday  enforced  upon  us 
for  sake  of  health  and  comeliness,  there  is  the  school  gymnasium  ;  and 
where  once  the  birch  rod  ruled,  there  is  now  pupil  self-government. 
The  school  has  indeed  become  "  a  genuine  form  of  active  community 
life,"  %  in  which  the  teacher  is  no  longer  despot,  but  leader  and  in- 
spirer.     Its  atmosphere  is  that  of  the  home. 

(4)  True  religion  works  toward  a  social  end.  The  prophets  were 
preachers  of  social  righteousness.  Jesus'  conception  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  was  that  of  an  ideal  social  order,  wherein  men  fulfill  their  son- 

*See  Bagley  :  "  The  Educative  Process,"  pp.  58-65- 

f  Dewey  :  "  My  Pedagogic  Creed." 

%  Dewey  :  "  The  School  and  Society,"  p.  27. 


186  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

ship  to  the  Father,  and  hence  are  brothers.  When  He  pictured  the 
Day  of  Judgment,  he  described  the  final  test  of  life  in  social  terms. 
"The  stern  questions  are  not  in  regard  to  personal  and  family  rela- 
tions, but  did  ye  visit  the  poor,  the  criminal,  the  sick,  and  did  ye  feed 
the  hungry?  "  *  He  sent  forth  His  disciples,  as  He  Himself  had  been 
sent,  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister.  His  call  is  to  a  life 
of  service. 

The  new  social  consciousness  of  our  day  has  but  served  to  recall  us 
to  Jesus'  own  conception  of  religion.  The  source  of  religious  life  is 
indeed  individual.  It  is  in  the  heart,  born  again  to  immediate  fellow- 
ship with  the  Father.  But  its  aim  is  social.  We  must  be  about  our 
Father's  business.  "The  individual,  instead  of  being  called  to  save 
his  soul  from  a  lost  world,  is  called  to  set  his  soul  to  save  the  world."  f 
We  are  saved  to  serve.  We  are  God's  fellow-workers.  And  the 
church  is  the  organization  that  marks  our  partnership.  It  is  an  in- 
strument for  social  service. 

2.  The  work  of  the  Sunday  school  is  social,  therefore,  just  because 
it  is  religious  and  educational.  If  religion  aims  at  the  establishment 
of  an  ideal  social  order  and  the  church  is  an  organization  for  service, 
the  church's  school  of  religion  must  train  for  that  service.  And  if 
education  is  social  both  in  aim  and  method,  the  Sunday  school  is  not 
true  to  its  educational  ideal  if  it  lacks  the  social  motive. 

3.  The  practical  question  is  :  What  can  the  Sunday  school  do  as 
a  social  institution  ? 

(1)  //  can  provide  social  life  a?id  enjoyment.  The  social  instincts 
demand  satisfaction.  Young  people  love  a  good  time  and  delight  in 
the  company  of  one  another.  The  Sunday  school  ought  to  meet  this 
natural  human  craving.  It  should  make  the  church  a  social  center. 
It  should  provide  a  wholesome  social  environment.  The  means  will 
vary,  of  course,  with  circumstances  and  resources — from  the  "festival  " 
and  "sociable"  of  the  rural  church  to  the  elaborate  system  of  clubs 
and  guilds,  sewing-classes  and  athletic  teams  of  an  institutional  church 
in  a  great  city.  In  any  case  a  threefold  good  is  attained  :  (a)  Young 
people  are  kept  from  undesirable  social  pleasures  and  from  places  of 
amusement  that  are  unworthy.  J    (b)  They  are  attracted  to  the  Sunday 

*  Addams :  "Democracy  and  Social  Ethics,"  p.  3. 

t  Peabody  :  "The  Approach  to  the  Social  Question,"  p.  197. 

X  Not  nearly  all  amusements,  of  course,  are  unworthy.  But  it  is  the  vice  of  our 
generation  to  seek  social  pleasure  too  exclusively  in  amusement  as  opposed  to  play. 
We  sit  idle  while  we  are  entertained  by  someone  else,  instead  of  entering  into  the 
sport  ourselves.  The  evil  is  greatly  increased  by  the  fact  that  our  amusements 
have  become  commercialised.    They  are  in  the  hands  of  men  who  seek  to  make 


THE  CLASS  AS  A  SOCIAL  INSTITUTION  187 

school,  which  thus  gains  a  "point  of  contact"  with  their  lives  and  an 
opening  to  their  minds  and  hearts,  (c)  The  young  people  away  from 
home,  of  which  all  larger  communities  are  full,  are  welcomed  to  the 
friendship  which  they  most  need,  and  gain  new  social  ties  for  those 
that  have  been  broken.* 

{2)  It  can  main  fain  a  social  motive  and  atmosphere  in  its  work  of 
instruction.  We  have  already  discussed  this.  We  have  said  that  the 
true  recitation  is  social,  and  that  the  ideal  method  of  teaching  is  co- 
operative. We  have  seen  that  the  way  to  get  the  pupil  to  express  the 
truth,  and  by  expression  learn,  is  to  furnish  motives  and  material  and 
to  provide  social  situations  such  as  naturally  call  expression  forth. 
We  have  noted  how  the  social  motive  underlies  the  work  that  we  may 
expect  the  pupil  to  do,  from  the  play  of  the  beginners  and  the  story- 
reproduction  of  primary  pupils,  to  the  hand-work  of  the  juniors  and  the 
study  and  research  of  older  pupils. 

"  Ideally,  the  Sunday  school  for  children  is  not  a  school  at  all. 
In  an  Edenic  condition  it  is  an  extension  of  the  home.  It  is  a 
place  where  a  wise  and  good  man  or  woman  gathers  a  group 
of  young  people  to  whom  he  is  in  the  truest  sense  a  god-parent, 
in  order  to  help  and  supplement  the  home  in  teaching  the  way 
of  life  and  encouraging  the  children  to  walk  in  it.  There  are, 
of  course,  pedagogic  laws  to  be  applied  in  Sunday  school  in- 
struction,but  the  aim  should  be  not  to  imitate  the  public  school. 
The  model  of  the  Sunday  school  should  be  rather  the  social 
settlement  classes  and  clubs,  where  the  teacher  and  scholars 
are  simply  friends,  who  meet  because  of  interest  in  the  same 
subject."  f 

Positively,  this  is  an  excellent  statement  of  what  the  spirit  of  the 
Sunday  school  should  be.  But  we  must  reject  its  implication  that  such 
a  spirit  and  atmosphere  is  not  to  be  had  in  the  public  school.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  in  the  few  years  since  these  words  were  first  written, 
the  whole  development  of  our  public  schools  has  been  in  the  direction 
indicated  ;  and  they  are  to-day  better  socialized  in  spirit  and  method 

money  out  of  them,  and  who  are  thus  constantly  tempted  to  pander  to  low  tastes 
rather  than  to  seek  to  elevate  them.  It  may  well  be  added  that  the  social  life  of 
the  church  and  .Sunday  school  ought  never  to  be  commercialized.  The  money- 
making  church  "sociable"  is  anything  but  social.  The  "festivals,"  "suppers" 
and  "bazaars"  that  were  common  not  so  long  ago,  were  unjustifiable  from  the 
standpoint  either  of  enjoyment,  business  or  benevolence. 

*  See  what  was  said  concerning  this  need  in  L,esson  VII.,  Section  5. 

f  Forbush  :  "  The  Boy  Problem,"  p.  106. 


188  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

than  most  Sunday  schools.  The  word  school  is  acquiring  a  new 
meaning. 

We  shall  not  take  up  the  problems  of  attendance  and  discipline  in 
this  book.  They  will  be  treated  in  the  book  to  follow  in  the  present 
series,  which  will  deal  with  the  organization  of  the  Sunday  school.  We 
all  know  that  haphazard  attendance  and  loose  discipline  are  chief 
among  the  things  that  detract  at  present  from  its  efficiency.  But  the 
remedy  is  not  to  be  found  in  compulsion  or  greater  rigidity  of  method. 
It  is  rather  in  the  more  whole-hearted  working  out  of  the  social  motive 
in  class  work  and  organization.  We  must  make  our  pupils  want  to 
come  to  Sunday  school  and  zvork  when  they  do  come,  just  because 
we  give  them  something  to  do  that  they  feel  is  worth  banding  together 
to  do. 

(3)  It  can  give  its  pupils  a  concrete  understanding  of  social  facts, 
and  develop  within  them  high  social  ideals.  The  truths  of  God's 
Word  are  not  isolated  ;  they  dwell  in  human  life.  The  Bible  is  the 
chief,  but  not  the  sole  text-book  of  the  Sunday  school.  Jesus  spoke 
of  Himself  as  "  the  way,  the  truth  and  the  life."  So  must  we  teach, 
weaving  truth  and  life  together,  that  the  gospel  may  be  to  our  pupils 
what  it  was  to  the  early  disciples — a  Way  of  life.* 

We  must  do  more  than  teach  abstract  doctrine,  or  even  touch  the 
heart.  We  must  develop  practical  wisdom.  We  must  help  our  pupils 
to  imderstand  life,  its  forces,  its  great  interests  and  issues.  Professor 
James  once  said  that  the  aim  of  a  college  education  really  is  "to  make 
you  able  to  know  a  good  man  when  you  see  one."  The  aim  of  the 
Sunday  school  might  be  stated  in  much  the  same  terms.  We  fail  un- 
less we  make  our  pupil  able  to  size  up  life's  practical  situations — 
rightly  to  know  the  good  when  he  sees  it  and  to  choose  it  for  himself. 

The  material  for  this  teaching  is  as  wide  as  life  itself.  Among  the 
more  important  materials  are  : 

(a)  The  biographies  of  the  great  religious  and  ethical  leaders  of 
Christendom  ;  such  as  Augustine,  St.  Francis,  Savonarola,  Luther, 
Melanchthon,  Gustavus  Adolphus,  Knox,  Bunyan,  Whitefield,  Wesley. 

(6)  History  from  a  moral  and  religious  point  of  view,  tracing  out 
the  great  political,  social  and  ethical  changes  which  have  made  the 
world  what  it  is.  This  will  include  such  topics  as  the  growth  of 
democracy,  the  development  of  religious  liberty,  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  the  establishment  of  universal  education,  the  recognition  of 
the  rights  of  labor,  the  development  of  world  unity  through  commerce 

*  The  early  Christians  called  their  religion  "  The  Way."  See  Acts  9  :  2  ;  19  :  9,  23 ; 
22  :  4  ;  24  :  14,  22. 


THE  CLASS  AS  A  SOCIAL  INSTITUTION  189 

and  quick  communication,  the  progress  toward  international  arbitra- 
tion and  universal  peace,  and  the  like — none  treated  abstractly,  or 
with  any  attempt  at  a  too  general  philosophy  of  history,  but  in  con- 
crete pictures  of  events  and  conditions. 

(c)  The  history  of  the  Church  and  its  part  in  the  uplift  of  humanity 
and  the  development  of  civilization.  We  believe  that  this  develop- 
ment has  been  Christian,  and  that  the  world  is  what  it  is  to-day  only 
because  Jesus  lived  and  taught  and  worked  among  men. 

(d)  Missions,  studied  historically,  and,  most  of  all,  practically. 
Ours  is  preeminently  a  missionary  age.  "  The  evangelization  of  the 
world  in  this  generation  ' '  bids  fair  to  become  a  fact.  Opportunities 
are  infinitely  greater  than  ever  before  ;  and  the  Church  is  going  about 
the  task  with  a  new  energy  and  practical  business  methods.  Every 
Sunday  school  ought  to  be  a  missionary  Sunday  school,  if  merely  for 
the  educative  value  of  the  missionary  interest.  Pupils  should  be  made 
to  understand  the  actual  social  and  religious  conditions  in  non-Chris- 
tian lands,  and  intelligently  to  appreciate  the  methods,  social  and  edu- 
cational as  well  as  evangelistic,  now  employed  to  reach  their  people. 

(e)  Social  conditions  and  duties  in  our  own  land  and  time.  What 
has  been  done  and  is  yet  to  be  done  in  social  amelioration  ;  methods 
of  dealing  with  poverty,  disease,  crime  and  dirt ;  the  education  of  the 
mentally  and  physically  defective  and  those  retarded  in  development; 
how  to  cope  with  intemperance,  impurity,  gambling,  political  graft ; 
the  problems  of  child-labor  and  divorce  ;  the  race-question ;  civic 
reform  and  city  betterment ;  socialism  and  the  public  ownership  of 
utilities.  Such  topics  must,  of  course,  be  carefully  graded.  Most  of 
them  are  for  the  elective  courses  of  the  senior  and  adult  departments. 
But  some  aspects  may  be  introduced  earlier.  Even  in  the  junior  age, 
children  will  be  interested  in  child-labor,  in  ways  of  helping  less 
fortunate  children,  and  in  the  methods  used  to  teach  the  blind  and 
deaf. 

(/)  Problems  of  personal  morality.  With  older  pupils  these  merge 
into  the  larger  problems  of  social  service.  But  what  we  are  too  apt  to 
deem  the  smaller  moral  problems  of  child-life  should  be  explicitly  con- 
sidered, and  right  ideals  presented. 

"  Unless  we  make  a  list  of  them  and  grade  each  of  our  main 
divisions,  many  of  the  most  vexed  moral  issues  of  a  child's  life 
will  not  be  discussed  with  him  in  Sunday  school.  Gambling, 
for  instance,  assumes  a  prevailing  form  of  its  own  for  every 
period  of  childhood,  and  in  each  form  presents  to  some  children, 


190  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

at  least,  a  separate  question  in  morals.  No  other  department  of 
the  curriculum  demands  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  child- 
hood and  the  actual  surroundings  and  temptations  of  the  par- 
ticular children  who  form  a  given  class  of  the  school.  Among 
other  topics  to  be  considered  in  a  Sunday  school  course  may  be 
mentioned :  fair  play  in  games,  games  of  chance,  temper,  per- 
sonal purity,  temperance,  swearing,  foul  talk,  practical  jokes, 
predatory  mischief,  boys'  fights,  jealousy,  gossip,  superstitions, 
honesty,  veracity,  intellectual  integrity,  philanthropy."  * 

(4)  It  can  give  its  pupils  something  to  do,  and  organize  them  in 
actual  social  service.  Religion  is  a  life.  We  learn  by  doing.  Both 
because  it  is  religious  and  because  it  is  educational,  therefore,  the 
Sunday  school  must  organize  its  pupils  for  action.  It  must  provide 
for  the  expression  of  the  truths  it  seeks  to  teach,  and  for  the  carrying 
out  in  life  of  the  ideals  it  presents. 

We  have  already  laid  great  stress  upon  the  principle,  ' '  No  impres- 
sion without  expression."  We  must  now  give  to  it  a  deeper  meaning. 
In  the  moral  and  spiritual  realm,  there  is  no  genuine  expression  save  that 
of  deeds.  Life's  real  values  are  those  of  character  and  action.  Not 
what  a  man  knows,  or  even  what  he  can  say,  but  the  way  he  lives, 
measures  his  final  value  to  society.  Not  what  your  pupil  can  tell  of 
Bible  stories  or  the  glibness  with  which  he  can  recite  texts,  not  the 
neatness  of  his  written  work,  the  precision  of  his  maps,  or  the  beauty 
of  the  models  he  has  constructed,  measure  the  success  of  your  teach- 
ing ;  but  rather  the  life  he  leads.  The  only  true  preparation  for 
life  is  life  itself;  the  only  effective  training  for  service  is  to  serve. 
Every  Sunday  school   class  should  organize  for  service.     It  should 

*  Hodge  :"  The  Content  of  a  Sunday  School  Curriculum,"  Religious  Education, 
December,  1909,  p.  433.  Mention  should  be  made  in  this  connection  of  the  Moral 
Education  Board,  with  headquarters  at  Baltimore.  Their  aim  is  "  to  teach  higher 
standards  of  morality  through  incidents  of  actual  life  as  presented  by  photo- 
graphs. Instantaneous  photographs  are  taken  of  the  incidents  exactly  as  they 
happen  in  real  life.  These  are  made  into  lantern  slides  and  thrown  on  the  screen 
life-size.  While  the  children  are  studying  them  they  are  taught  what  is  right  and 
wrong.  '  Instantaneous  photography  takes  sin  in  the  act,  and  even  a  careless 
person  will  remember  what  kind  of  thing  this  is — when  he  has  seen  it  done  with 
the  base  details  and  evil  face  of  the  sinner  ! '  "  Wessons  are  prepared  upon  such 
topics  as  "The  Gentleman,"  "  Personal  and  National  Thrift,"  "  The  True  Sports- 
man," "What  I  am  Going  to  Do  when  I  am  Grown  Up,"  "What  Men  Think 
About  Boys'  Fights,"  each  with  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  slides.  These  slides,  with 
the  text  of  the  lesson,  are  sent  for  use  to  any  school  upon  the  payment  of  a  small 
rental  fee.  See  Mr.  Baker's  brief  account  in  Religious  Education  for  June,  1910, 
from  which  the  above  is  quoted. 


THE  CLASS  AS  A  SOCIAL  INSTITUTION  191 

get  something  to  do  that  is  of  real  social  value.  It  should  hold  its 
pupils  by  their  common  interest  in  this  concrete  piece  of  work.  It 
should  express  its  ideals  in  real  endeavor. 

4.  This  social  conception  of  the  Sunday  school  recognizes  the  class 
as  a  natural  unit  of  social  and  religious  life.  It  makes  of  the  school 
in  no  unreal  sense  a  federation  of  classes. 

(1)  The  teaching,  work  and  organization  should  be  carefully  graded. 
Life's  changes  are  nowhere  more  evident  than  in  the  varying  social 
attitudes  of  later  childhood  and  adolescence.  The  content  of  the 
teaching,  the  type  of  class  organization,  and  the  character  of  the 
social  service  which  it  may  seek  to  accomplish,  must  be  determined 
with  full  regard  to  the  natural  interests  of  the  pupils,  the  stage  of 
moral  development  reached,  and  the  opportunities  and  temptations  of 
their  social  environment.  In  the  junior  department  there  may  be  a 
class  of  Boy  Scouts,  and  one  of  girls  who  are  interested  in  getting  a 
Christmas  tree  ready  for  a  children's  hospital ;  in  the  intermediate 
and  senior  departments  you  may  find  one  band  making  a  study  of 
missions  in  India  and  supporting  a  native  preacher,  while  another,  of 
older  pupils,  is  interested  in  problems  of  philanthropy  and  the  work  of 
social  settlements.  Each  has  its  particular  work  to  do,  and  each  an 
organization  of  its  own. 

(2)  This  conception  of  the  Sunday  school  makes  practicable  the  co- 
ordination of  all  the  Church's  educational  agencies.  We  have  mul- 
tiplied organizations  as  new  needs  have  been  recognized,  until  the 
very  strenuousness  of  our  effort  defeats  itself.  Besides  the  Sunday 
school  there  are  boys'  clubs  and  girls'  clubs,  gymnasium  classes  and 
athletic  teams,  mission  bands  for  all  ages  from  the  tiny  tots  up,  junior, 
intermediate  and  senior  young  people's  societies,  aid  societies,  the 
King's  Daughters  and  the  men's  brotherhoods.  There  is  overlapping 
of  function,  incoordination  of  effort,  and  a  tremendous  waste  of  energy. 
There  would  be  a  great  increase  of  efficiency  if  each  church  were  to 
bring  all  its  educational  agencies  under  one  organization.  Methods 
may,  of  course,  vary.  There  may  simply  be  a  committee  of  the  church 
council,  to  mark  out  the  fields  of  the  respective  organizations  and 
bring  about  the  needed  unity  of  effort.  A  federation  of  societies  may 
be  organized  as  a  "church  school"  of  which  each  would  be  a  part. 
The  societies,  as  a  school  of  practice,  may  be  correlated  with  the  vari- 
ous grades  of  the  Sunday  school,  as  a  school  of  instruction.  The 
simplest  plan  would  seem  to  be  their  incorporation  within  the  Sunday 
school  itself.  Our  conception  of  the  class  as  a  unit  of  social  and  re- 
ligious life  makes  this  quite  possible.     Each   might  even  keep  its 


192  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

own  name  and  distinctive  organization — as  a  class  name  and  organiza- 
tion. 

(3)  This  conception  of  the  Sunday  school  makes  possible  a  definite 
cooperation  with  home  and  public  school.  If  we  ask  parents  and 
school  teachers  to  help  us  teach  religious  truths  to  our  pupils,  we  get 
little  response.  But  if  we  organize  to  do  something  of  social  value, 
they  can  and  will  cooperate.  The  Boy  Scout  plan  works  as  well  in 
the  public  school  as  in  the  Sunday  school.  The  sewing-circle  of  girls 
who  are  making  doll  clothes  for  less  fortunate  children,  may  enlist  the 
members  of  a  sewing-class  in  school.  The  class  that  is  interested  in 
the  problems  of  good  citizenship  and  social  betterment,  deals  with 
these  same  problems  in  the  high  school,  and  finds  the  same  ideals  pre- 
sented. The  class  organization  of  the  Sunday  school  is  paralleled  by 
the  pupil  self-government  of  the  public  school.  As  for  fathers  and 
mothers,  they  usually  want  to  help  all  they  can  ;  but  when  we  ask 
them  to  help  us  teach,  they  do  not  know  what  or  how.  Ask  them  to 
help  the  children  do  some  concrete  thing,  and  there  is  no  hesitation  or 
difficulty.  Upon  the  social  side  of  our  work  we  can  easily  enough 
enlist  the  other  social  agencies  of  the  child's  life  ;  the  work  of  instruc- 
tion we  must  do  ourselves. 

5.  The  organized  adult  class  stands  naturally  at  the  head  of  such  a 
federation  of  classes  into  a  school  of  social  service.  Once  the  social 
conception  of  the  Sunday  school  is  fully  realized,  the  specific  problem 
of  the  adult  class  will  disappear.  If  the  Sunday  school  is  an  organi- 
zation for  work  in  the  kingdom,  those  who  have  worked  in  it  from 
childhood  up  will  remain  in  its  service.  The  adult  class  will  differ 
from  others  only  in  that  its  interests  are  mature,  its  grasp  of  social 
problems  and  opportunities  more  broad,  its  temper  more  truly  prac- 
tical, its  standards  of  efficiency  more  exacting,  and  democracy  more 
essential  in  its  work  and  organization.  Let  the  particular  form  of 
organization  be  what  it  will — the  men's  brotherhood,  the  women's 
missionary  society,  the  mothers'  club,  the  young  men's  league — each 
should  itself  become  part  of  the  Sunday  school,  or  maintain  an  adult 
class  in  the  Sunday  school.  None  need  surrender  its  independence  of 
organization  ;  it  should  be  required  simply  to  register  its  distinctive 
educational  work  as  one  of  the  elective  courses  of  the  advanced  de- 
partment. 

The  advantages  of  such  a  plan  are  manifold.  We  name  only  a  few  : 
(a)  coordination  of  educational  work  and  unity  of  practical  effort 
within  the  church  ;  (b)  the  practical  service  of  the  adult  organizations 
will  be  more  enlightened,  since  the  educational  motive  remains  ;  {c) 


THE  CLASS  AS  A  SOCIAL  INSTITUTION  193 

the  children's  practical  service  will  acquire  dignity  in  their  eyes,  be- 
cause adults,  too,  are  seen  to  share  the  same  social  motive  and  to 
work  through  the  same  institution;  (d)  there  will  be  no  evident 
time  of  graduation  from  the  Sunday  school. 

6,  The  socialization  of  the  Sunday  school  and  the  coordina- 
tion of  the  Church's  educational  agencies  are  among  the  most  im- 
portant problems  that  we  face  to-day.  This  chapter  has  sought  to  in- 
terpret a  movement  that  has  only  begun,  and  to  indicate  the  direction 
in  which  the  Sunday  school  will  develop  in  the  immediate  future. 
Time  may  show  that  its  interpretation  is  in  certain  details  untrue,  and 
some  of  its  suggestions  mistaken.  There  is  need  of  experiment  and 
wider  perspective.  But  the  principle  will  abide.  The  Sunday  school 
of  to-morrow  will  be  social  in  aim  and  method.* 

Two  possible  misconceptions  must  be  guarded  against:  (i)  The 
educational  conception  of  the  Sunday  school,  maintained  throughout 
this  book,  remains  true.  Organization  for  service  makes  no  less  im- 
perative the  impartation  of  ideas  and  ideals.  The  Sunday  school  will 
remain  a  school,  with  the  Bible  its  chief  text-book.  Rightly  viewed, 
the  social  and  educational  co)iceptions  are  one.  This  we  may  learn  from 
the  public  schools  of  to-day,  with  their  new  methods  of  instruction  and 
discipline,  their  social  atmosphere  and  aims.  The  essential  character- 
istic of  a  school  is  not  its  rigidity  of  discipline  or  its  imposition  of 
tasks,  but  rather  that  it  leads  its  pupils  to  learn.  (2)  The  social  con- 
ception of  the  Sunday  school  here  set  forth  is  far  from  the  subjective 
and  self-centered  "social  ideal"  quoted  at  the  beginning  of  this 
chapter.  "The  school  itself,  with  its  own  esprit  de  corps,'''  is  not 
"  the  main  thing."  It  does  not  exist  simply  to  maintain  itself,  or  to 
furnish  a  field  for  activities  that  will  interest  its  members.  On  the  con- 
trary, its  fundamental  note  is  that  of  service.  It  seeks  to  foster  within 
its  pupils  the  objective  mood.  It  strives  to  lead  their  thoughts  beyond 
self  or  school  to  life's  real  social  values  and  to  the  good  they  can  do. 

*  The  best  literature  on  this  subject  is  to  be  found  in  the  issues  of  Religious 
Education  for  the  past  few  years.  This  is  the  journal  of  the  Religious  Education 
Association,  and  should  be  in  the  library  of  every  Sunday  school. 

13 


194  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

QUESTIONS 

i.  What  evidences  are  there  in  our  day  of  a  new  social  conscious- 
ness ? 

2.  Discuss  the  social  aim  of  education  and  show  how  the  public 
school  is  becoming  socialized  in  atmosphere  and  method. 

3.  What  is  the  social  aim  of  religion  ? 

4.  Why  should  the  work  of  the  Sunday  school  be  social  in  aim  and 
method  ? 

5.  Why  should  the  Sunday  school  provide  for  the  social  life  and  en- 
joyment of  its  pupils  ? 

6.  How  can  the  Sunday  school  maintain  the  social  motive  in  its 
work  of  instruction  ? 

7.  What  can  the  Sunday  school  do  to  develop  high  social  ideas 
within  its  pupils  ? 

8.  What  can  the  Sunday  school  do  in  the  way  of  practical  social 
service  ? 

9.  In  what  sense  is  the  class  the  natural  unit  of  social  and  religious 
life  in  the  Sunday  school  ? 

10.  How  does  this  conception  of  the  Sunday  school  provide  for  the 
coordination  of  the  Church's  educational  agencies? 

11.  How  does  this  conception  of  the  Sunday  school  make  possible 
definite  cooperation  with  the  home  and  the  public  school  ? 

12.  Discuss  the  place  of  the  organized  adult  class  in  a  socially  or- 
ganized Sunday  school. 

13.  Does  the  social   conception  of  the  Sunday  school  make  it  any 
less  a  school  ?    Give  reasons  for  your  answer. 

14.  How  does  the  social  conception  of  the  Sunday  school  set  forth 
in  this  chapter  differ  from  the  social  ideal  quoted  at  its  beginning  ? 


LESSON  XX 
The  Spiritual  Goal 

The  final  goal  of  our  work  is  spiritual.  No  mere  accretion  of  knowl- 
edge or  outward  molding  of  action  can  save  the  world  or  bring  a 
single  soul  to  fullness  of  life.  "This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  should 
know  Thee  the  only  true  God,  and  Him  whom  Thou  didst  send,  even 
Jesus  Christ."  The  true  teacher  is  an  evangelist.  He  is  not  content 
merely  to  teach  about  God.  He  strives  to  reach  the  "hidden  man 
of  the  heart."  He  seeks  to  help  his  pupils  to  know  God  in  personal 
relation  and  so  to  love  and  serve  Him.  He  will  not  rest  until  in  heart 
and  will  they  have  consecrated  themselves  to  their  Father. 

i.  The  work  of  the  teacher  thus  centers  about  the  pupil's  personal 
decision  to  accept  the  love  of  God  as  revealed  in  Jesus  and  to  live  as 
God's  child.  Before  this  decision,  we  seek  to  prepare  the  pupil  in 
due  time  to  make  it ;  after  the  decision,  we  try  to  help  him  the  more 
fully  to  carry  it  out. 

(i)  The  natural  time  for  decision  is  in  adolescence.  We  have  seen 
that  most  conversions  take  place  between  the  ages  of  thirteen  and 
twenty-one.  And  it  is  not  strange  that  this  should  be  so.  The  awak- 
ening of  interest  in  religion  and  the  decision  to  love  and  serve  God 
are  natural  aspects  of  that  general  expansion  of  selfhood  and  subse- 
quent concentration  of  life  that  are  the  outstanding  characteristics  of 
adolescence.  We  should  not  attempt  to  force  decision  before  this 
natural  awakening  ;  but  wre  should  bend  every  energy  to  see  that 
decision  is  made  before  it  is  past  and  life  has  begun  to  acquire  its  set. 

(2)  Not  all  decisions  are  of  the  same  type.  They  vary  with  age, 
temperament  and  experience.  If  we  limit  the  term  "  conversion  "  to 
those  decisions  which  involve  a  real  turning  about  from  a  life  that  is 
now  felt  to  be  one  of  sin  and  failure,  not  nearly  all  adolescent  deci- 
sions are  conversions.  Many  children,  brought  up  in  godly  homes 
and  baptized  in  infancy,  have  never  felt  alienation  from  God  and 
naturally  choose  to  serve  Him  and  to  make  public  profession  of  their 
faith  when  they  reach  adolescence.  Decisions  at  twelve  and  thirteen 
are  usually  of  this  type — the  natural  result  of  a  normal  religious  nur- 
ture and  of  social  suggestion.  Those  that  come  later,  at  sixteen  or 
twenty,  usually  involve  something  of  inward  conflict.  The  character 
of  this  conflict  varies  with  temperament  and  with  the  experiences  that 

(195) 


L96  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  vSERIES 

have  touched  the  life.  Some  are  naturally  more  emotional  than 
others.  We  make  a  great  mistake  if  we  attempt  to  force  all  decisions 
to  conform  to  a  single  type,  or  to  make  a  definite  sort  of  spiritual  "ex- 
perience" a  condition  of  church  membership.  The  worth  of  a 
decision  is  to  be  measured,  not  by  what  lies  behind  it,  but  by  what 
comes  after ;  not  by  its  own  suddenness  or  emotional  intensity,  but 
by  its  practical  results  in  the  life.  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them. ' ' 

(3)  Decision  is  in  any  case  an  act  of  will.  It  consists  in  the 
assumption  of  an  attitude  towards  God  and  the  choice  of  a  way  of 
living.  It  is  to  the  willing  side  of  the  pupil's  nature,  therefore,  that 
we  must  appeal.  And  it  is  his  willingness  to  be  and  do  that  we  must 
make  the  test  of  his  fitness  to  make  a  public  confession  of  faith  and 
become  a  communicant  member  of  the  church.  To  this  all  doctrinal 
and  experiential  tests  must  be  subordinate. 

Experience  follows  action  ;  and  dogma  follows  experience.  His- 
torically, creeds  and  confessions  are  the  expression  rather  than  the 
cause  of  spiritual  life  among  men.  It  is  so  with  the  individual.  The 
comprehension  of  doctrines,  the  precise  formulation  of  beliefs,  the 
realizing  sense  of  God's  presence  and  love,  cannot  come  first  in  the 
developing  life.  "If  any  man  willeth  to  do  His  will,  he  shall  know 
of  the  teaching."  It  is  only  by  living  with  God  that  we  come  to  know 
Him  and  to  understand  His  truth.  The  important  thing  is  to  get  your 
pupil  started  on  the  life. 

(4)  Decision  of  some  sort  is  bound  to  be  made  in  adolescence.  The 
expanding  life  comes  face  to  face  with  the  issue.  It  will  get  set  in  one 
way  or  the  other.  It  will  include  religion  or  let  it  alone.  But  to  neg- 
lect God  or  to  postpone  the  decision  to  serve  Him  is  to  reject  Him. 
To  refuse  to  decide  is  itself  a  decision — a  decision  against  God. 

2.  Making  ready  for  the  decision.  We  cannot  begin  too  soon  to 
prepare  the  pupil  to  decide  rightly  when  the  issue  presents  itself.  It 
is  in  early,  middle  and  later  childhood  that  the  foundations  of  morality 
and  religion  are  laid.  We  have  already  thought  of  the  work  of  the 
teacher  in  these  years.*  By  instruction,  training  and  -influence  we 
will  earnestly  seek  to  implant  true  ideas  about  God  and  life,  and  to 
develop  right  habits  and  worthy  attitudes.  We  will  make  ready  for 
future  decision,  not  by  talking  about  it  or  by  seeking  to  force  it  before 
the  time,  but  by  meeting  wisely  the  particular  interests  and  needs  of 
each  stage  in  the  developing  life.     There  are  four  great  agencies  of 

*  See  what  was  said  on  this  subject  in  Wesson  XI.,  Sections  4,  6,  7  and  8,  and  in 
Wesson  XII.,  Section  6. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  GOAL  197 

spiritual  nurture  which  we  shall  use — teaching,  atmosphere,  influence, 
and  life  itself. 

(i)  The  teaching  of  the  Sunday  school  should  have  a  spiritual  mo- 
tive. This  does  not  mean  that  the  same  truths  are  to  be  taught  in 
every  grade,  or  that  every  lesson  should  end  with  a  spiritual  application. 
It  does  mean  that  the  teaching  should  be  the  expression  of  the  teach- 
er's own  life  with  God  and  his  steadfast  purpose  to  guide  his  pupils  to 
such  a  life  ;  and  that  it  should  be  grounded  in  his  sympathetic  discern- 
ment of  the  truth  as  revealed  in  God's  word  and  his  endeavor  to  give 
that  truth  to  his  pupils. 

There  must  be  moral  and  spiritual  applications,  therefore.  The 
teaching  fails  that  does  not  lead  to  definite,  practical  conclusions. 
The  great  question  is  :  Should  the  teacher  state  the  practical  conclu- 
sion and  make  the  application  for  his  pupils,  or  should  he  let  them  do 
this  jor  themselves?  Should  his  appeal  to  heart  a?id  cotiscience  and 
will  be  direct  or  indirect?  It  is  hard  to  lay  down  general  rules. 
Here,  if  anywhere,  the  teacher's  work  must  be  personal  and  individ- 
ual.   There  are  two  reasons  why  the  indirect  method  is  usually  better : 

(a)  If  the  teacher  makes  the  application  for  his  pupils,  there  is  dan- 
ger lest  in  their  minds  his  authority  be  substituted  for  that  of  the  truth 
itself.  They  may  feel  that  it  is  but  his  conclusion,  and  a  mere  matter 
of  opinion.  Even  so,  they  may  accept  it  for  a  time.  But  the  spiritual 
life  can  finally  rest  upon  no  authority  other  than  the  inward  appeal  of 
the  truth  itself.  Life's  ultimate  convictions  are  grounded,  not  in  what 
teachers  say  or  churches  formulate,  or  even  in  the  Bible  as  an  external 
authority  forced  upon  us  from  above,  but  in  the  soul's  natural  response 
to  the  truth  of  God.  He  has  made  us  for  Himself.  We  know  Him 
when  He  appears  to  us,  and  our  hearts  leap  within  us  when  His  truth 
is  seen.  If  we  will  but  get  the  real  meaning  of  His  Word  to  men  and 
present  it  clearly  and  concretely  to  our  pupils,  we  need  add  no  applica- 
tion of  our  own.  They,  too,  will  feel  its  truth  and  power.  It  will  beget 
within  them  convictions  which  are  abiding  because  the  expression  of 
their  own  deepest  impulses  and  aspirations. 

"  The  object  to  be  sought  is  to  put  the  pupil  in  possession  of  the 
pure  gold  of  truth  ;  to  beget  in  him  personal  convictions  as  near 
to  the  real  truth  as  possible  ;  to  lead  him  to  see  and  feel  for 
himself  the  intrinsic  and  permanent  authority  of  the  teachings  of 
the  Bible,  and  to  build  them  into  his  life.  To  do  this  let  the 
teacher  himself  set  the  example  of  assuming  towards  the  Script- 
ure the  humble  attitude  of   the   interpreter,  and  towards  the 


198  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

truth  when  found  the  humble  attitude  of  obedience,  and  let  him 
train  his  pupils  to  do  the  same.  Let  him  seek  not  so  much  by 
the  weight  of  authority  to  drive  home  the  interpretation  and  ap- 
plication of  the  Scripture  which  he  has  discovered  or  accepted 
as  to  bring  the  pupil  face  to  face  in  a  receptive  attitude  of  mind 
with  the  truth,  that  it  may  make  its  own  powerful  appeal.  In 
short,  let  the  teacher  in  the  Sunday  school  understand  that  his 
duty  is  not  to  enforce  his  own  views  upon  the  pupil,  but  to  lead 
that  pupil  to  study  the  Bible  honestly  and  to  recognize  and  obey 
truth."* 

(6)  Indirect  suggestion  is  usually  more  potent  than  direct  sugges- 
tion. The  strength  of  a  suggested  idea  depends  upon  its  ability  to 
keep  itself  before  the  mind,  and  so  to  issue  in  action.  And  this  ability- 
depends  in  great  part,  it  is  clear,  upon  the  absence  of  conflicting  ideas 
which  might  claim  the  attention  and  inhibit  action.  A  hypnotized 
subject  will  act  upon  any  idea  you  suggest  to  him,  simply  because  the 
hypnotic  sleep  prevents  any  conflicting  ideas  from  coming  to  mind. t 
A  little  child  will  believe  and  act  upon  anything  you  tell  him,  just  be- 
cause he  lacks  the  critical  ideas  which  experience  alone  can  bring.  % 

As  we  grow  up  and  experiences  accumulate  and  judgment  matures, 
we  become  less  open  to  direct  suggestion.  The  presentation  of  any 
idea  arouses  within  us  a  host  of  images,  memories  and  other  ideas,  any 
one  of  which  may  be  more  attractive  than  that  presented  and  may 
take  possession  of  the  mind  to  its  exclusion.  And  if  we  are  conscious 
that  an  effort  is  being  made  to  influence  our  thinking  or  conduct,  that 
very  fact  marshals  conflicting  ideas  within  us.  We  naturally  put 
ourselves  into  an  attitude  of  defence  ;  we  resist  the  intrusion  of  the 
foreign  thought.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  idea  be  introduced  easily 
and  indirectly,  without  shock  or  palpable  effort  to  influence  ;  if  we 
are  given,  instead  of  a  ready-made  conclusion,  the  material  from  which 
to  draw  one  of  our  own — it  then  seems  a  natural  part  of  ourselves, 
holds  our  interest  and  influences  action. 

The  Bible  is  full  of  illustrations  of  the  power  of  indirect  suggestion. 
We  have  already  seen  how  Nathan  took  this  method  to  bring  home  to 
David  a  sense  of  his  sin.§  Jesus  used  it  constantly.  It  is  one  reason 
why  He  taught  so  much  by  stories.  When  the  lawyer,  "desiring  to 
justify  himself,"  asked  "  Who  is  my  neighbor  ? "    Jesus  gave  no  direct 

*  Burton  and  Mathews  :  "  Principles  and  Ideals  for  the  Sunday  School,"  pp.  38,  39. 
f  See  I^esson  X.,  Section  1. 
X  See  Wesson  III.,  Section  5. 
§  See  Wesson  XVII.,  Section  4. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  GOAL  199 

answer,  but  began  to  tell  a  story.  He  told  how  a  man  was  beset  by 
robbers  in  a  lonely  road,  and  left  naked  and  half  dead  ;  how  in  turn 
a  priest  and  a  Levite  came  that  way  and  saw  him  lying,  but  "  passed 
by  on  the  other  side";  how  finally  a  Samaritan  was  "moved  with 
compassion"  and  cared  for  him.  The  story  ended  with  a  question  : 
"Which  of  these  three,  thinkest  thou,  proved  neighbor  unto  him  that 
fell  among  the  robbers ?  "  "  He  that  showed  mercy  on  him,"  came 
the  answer.  Only  then,  when  the  lawyer  had  gotten  the  idea  for  him- 
self, did  Jesus  drive  home  the  obligation:  "Go,  and  do  thou  like- 
wise." Take,  again,  Jesus'  answer  to  Peter's  question  after  the  young 
ruler  had  gone  away  "sorrowful,"  preferring  his  riches  to  the  kingdom 
of  God.  While  Jesus  was  yet  speaking  about  how  hard  it  is  for  one 
who  cares  for  wealth  to  enter  into  the  kingdom,  Peter  broke  forth 
with  :  "Lo,  we  have  left  all,  and  followed  thee  ;  what  then  shall  we 
have?"  That  must  have  been  a  hard  question  for  Jesus  to  hear.  It 
revealed  in  His  own  disciple  the  very  mercenary  temper  which  had  just 
caused  the  young  ruler  to  turn  away.  Yet  he  manifested  no  sorrow  or 
impatience  ;  he  uttered  not  a  word  of  reproach.  There  was  marvelous 
tact  in  the  answer  he  gave  Peter  that  day.  There  was  gentle  irony — 
"There  is  no  man  that  hath  left  house,  or  brethren,  or  sisters,  or 
mother,  or  father,  or  children,  or  lands,  for  my  sake,  and  for  the 
gospel's  sake,  but  he  shall  receive  a  hundredfold  now  in  this  time, 
houses,  and  brethren,  and  sisters,  and  mothers,  and  children,  and 
lands  " — and  bitter  fact — "with  persecutions  " — then  the  eternal  truth 
— "and  in  the  world  to  come  eternal  life  "—finally  a  story,  comparing 
the  kingdom  to  a  householder  who  paid  his  laborers  as  he  pleased,  to 
everyone  the  same  wage,  no  matter  how  long  or  hard  he  had 
worked.  Thus  ifidirectly  and  concretely  Jesus  led  Peter  to  the  thought 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  not  built  upon  the  principle  of  cash  pay- 
ment, and  that  service  is  its  own  reward. 

In  general,  then,  the  indirect  method  of  getting  moral  and  spiritual 
conclusions  is  the  better.  It  is  indeed  but  an  application  of  the 
principles  of  self-activity  and  apperception.  Better  to  get  the  pupil  to 
think  for  himself  than  to  think  for  him.  It  is  harder,  of  course.  It 
means  that  you  must  present  the  material  so  concretely  and  vividly 
that  your  pupils  will  be  sure  to  get  the  right  conclusion. 

Two  qualifications  must  be  made  :  (a )  With  little  children  the  direct 
method  may  and  must  be  used— because  they  are  as  yet  unable  to  reason 
clearly  for  themselves,  because  they  have  implicit  faith  in  the  authority 
of  those  they  love,  because  their  minds  are  peculiarly  open  to  direct 
suggestion.     Only  gradually  is   direct  to  be  replaced  with  indirect 


200  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

suggestion,  (b)  There  are  times  when,  in  every  grade  and  for  every 
pupil,  the  teacher  should  directly,  clearly  and  forcibly  state  the 
practical  application  of  the  truth.  That  teacher  will  fail  of  his  highest 
efficiency  who  is  afraid  ever  to  appeal  directly  to  the  conscience  and 
will  of  his  pupil.  The  indirect  method  is  often  not  in  itself  enough. 
Nathan  followed  his  story  with  ' '  Thou  art  the  man ' ' ;  Jesus  turned 
the  lawyer's  conclusion  into  an  obligation — "Go,  and  do  thou  like- 
wise." Direct  suggestion  is  at  times  needed,  not  as  a  substitute  for 
indirect  suggestion,  but  as  its  culmination.  Do  first  all  that  you  can  to 
make  the  pupil  see  the  truth  for  himself,  then  do  not  be  afraid  to  apply 
it  frankly,  if  you  feel  that  such  directness  is  needed  to  crystallize  his 
convictions. 

(2)  The  atmosphere  of  the  Sunday  school  should  be  spiritually 
uplifting.  The  architecture  and  furnishings  of  the  Sunday  school 
chapel  and  classrooms,  the  pictures  on  the  walls  and  windows  of 
stained  glass,  contribute  much  to  the  total  impression  made  upon  the 
sensitive  soul  of  the  child,  and  mean  more  to  the  adolescent  than  we 
sometimes  think.  The  chapel  should  be  churchly,' the  classrooms 
attractive  and  usable ;  and  the  whole  in  good  taste.  Only  true  art  is 
worthy  of  the  God  we  serve  ;  and  only  true  art  can  help  to  bring 
our  pupils  to  a  sense  of  His  presence. 

The  principle  applies  especially  to  the  ritual  of  the  Sunday  school. 
We  are  too  apt  to  think  of  it  as  a  mere  "order  of  exercises  "  for  open- 
ing and  closing  the  school.  But  there  should  be  at  some  time  in  the 
session  a  brief  service  of  real  worship.  It  should  be  a  time  of  genuine 
devotion,  when  pupils  and  teachers  together  join  in  praise  to  the 
Father  whose  Word  they  are  studying,  and  in  prayer  that  He  may  en- 
lighten their  minds  and  guide  their  lives.  It  should  help  the  pupils  to 
feel  the  reality  of  spiritual  things,  and  train  them  in  reverent  worship. 
It  should  educate  them,  moreover,  to  understand  and  love  the  services 
of  the  church. 

The  worship  of  the  Sunday  school  is  as  real  a  factor  in  the  religions 
education  of  its  pupils  as  the  lesson  itself.  It  should  be  carefully 
planned  with  this  in  view,  (a)  It  should  be  clearly  marked  off  as 
worship  from  the  business,  the  instruction,  and  the  social  interests  of 
the  school.  The  period  of  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  spent  in  prayer  and 
praise  should  be  sacred.  No  announcements  or  reports,  talks  about 
the  lesson  or  "  remarks  "  by  visitors,  exhortations  to  benevolence  or 
discussion  of  plans  for  securing  better  attendance,  should  be  allowed 
to  interrupt  its  spirit  of  devotion.  Least  of  all  should  it  be  invaded  by 
the  blatant  precentor  with  his  waving  baton  and  his  incitement  to  sing 


THE  SPIRITUAL  GOAL  201 

louder — "  now  the  boys  !  "  "now  the  girls!"  "now  all  together!" 
All  these  may  have  their  place,  and  some  of  them  certainly  do  ;  but 
they  are  as  much  out  of  place  in  the  devotional  period  of  the  Sunday 
school  as  they  would  be  in  the  more  formal  worship  of  the  church. 
(d)  There  is  much  room  for  improvement  in  the  music  of  the  Sunday 
school.  Many  of  the  songs  in  the  so-called  modern  books  and 
"services"  for  festival  occasions  are  utterly  unworthy,  from  the  stand- 
point either  of  religion,  literature  or  music,  (c)  If  the  worship  of  the 
Sunday  school  is  to  mean  all  that  it  should  to  the  pupils,  there  must 
be  grading  here  as  well  as  in  the  teaching.  Each  of  the  larger  divisions 
of  the  school  should  have  its  own  service.  There  should  be  at  least 
two  such  divisions,  with  one  service  for  children  under  eight  or  nine, 
and  another  for  pupils  older  than  this.  It  is  better  to  have  three — one 
for  beginners  and  primary  children,  one  for  the  juniors,  and  another 
for  adolescents  and  adults. 

'  The  principle  of  adaptation  to  the  age  of  pupils  applies  here 
only  less  strictly  than  in  the  matter  of  instruction.  It  is  as 
absurd  to  ask  children  of  ten  years  to  sing  hymns  reflecting  the 
experiences  of  mature  men  and  women  as  to  ask  their  fathers 
and  grandfathers  to  join  in  distinctively  children's  songs.  Some 
hymns  of  praise  are,  perhaps,  adapted  to  old  and  young  alike. 
But  the  musical  service  of  the  school  can  be  what  it  ought  to  be 
only  when  there  is  some  separation  of  the  school  into  divisions 
for  the  service  as  well  as  for  the  teaching.  Each  division  needs 
its  own  hymns,  and  these,  while  always  real  hymns,  should  be 
adapted  to  the  relative  maturity  of  the  members  of  that 
division."* 

(3)  The  influence  of  older  persons  should  be  such  as  to  lead  the 
pupil  toward  the  spiritual  life.  "Iron  sharpeneth  iron;  so  a  man 
sharpeneth  the  countenance  of  his  friend."  Among  the  forces  that 
shape  the  characters  of  men,  there  is  none  more  potent  than  the  con- 
tact of  person  with  person,  life  upon  life.  And  it  begins  early.  The 
power  of  personal  influence  and  association  is  rooted  in  the  child's 
imitativeness  and  his  sensitivity  to  the  attitudes  of  others  ;  it  shapes 
the  hero-worship  of  later  childhood,  and  culminates  in  the  suscepti- 
bility of  the  adolescent  to  social  suggestion.  The  attitude  of  the  youth 
toward  religion  will  be  in  great  part  determined  by  the  attitude  toward 
it  of  the  older  persons  with  whom  he  is  most  thrown  in  contact  and 
whom  he  most  honors.     For  the  sake  of  the  children,  therefore,  the 

*  Burton  and  Mathews  :  ''Principles  and  Ideals  for  the  Sunday  School,"   p.  191. 


202  LUTHERAN  TEACHKR-TRAINING  SERIES 

Sunday  school  should  do  all  it  can  to  enlist  the  hearty  cooperation  of 
parents,  and  to  help  them  maintain  an  active  interest  in  the  church 
and  its  work.  Above  all,  the  teacher  should  see  to  it  that  he  himself 
is  what  he  would  lead  his  pupils  to  be.  He  must  be  their  friend,  but 
more.  He  must  in  life  and  character  command  their  respect  and  stand 
before  them  as  an  ideal.  He  must  show  forth  the  spirit  of  the  Master. 
And  his  consecration  must  be  open  ;  he  must  be  a  member  of  the 
church. 

(4)  The  life  of  the  pupil  in  active  Christian  service  may  lead  him 
naturally  to  wish  to  continue  in  that  service,  and  to  assume  the  larger 
responsibilities  of  spiritual  maturity.  This  was  made  plain  in  the  last 
chapter.  We  saw  then  that  the  Sunday  school  must  organize  its 
pupils  in  actual  social  service,  if  it  is  to  accomplish  either  its  educa- 
tional or  its  religious  work.  We  need  only  add  now  that  this  social 
service  will  fail  of  its  highest  end  if  the  religious  motive  be  not  made 
perfectly  clear.  Without  cant  or  sentimentality,  but  with  simple  and 
natural  frankness,  the  children  should  be  led  to  realize  that  what  they 
are  doing  is  God's  work  and  what  Jesus  would  have  them  do. 

3.  Getting  the  decision.  When  the  time  comes  for  decision,  how 
shall  we  get  the  pupil  to  make  it  ?  We  shall,  of  course,  make  a  more 
personal  appeal  through  all  those  agencies  of  spiritual  nurture  which 
we  have  used  to  make  ready  for  decision.  The  material  we  teach  will  be 
such  as  to  stir  the  will  and  arouse  the  conscience.  In  worship  we  shall 
strive  to  enlist  the  new  feelings  and  aspirations  of  the  heart  of  youth. 
We  shall  give  ourselves  in  friendship  and  guard  our  influence,  now  of 
all  times.  We  shall  find  for  the  expanding  life  something  to  do  that 
may  strengthen  its  dawning  ideals  and  lead  to  new  visions  of  service. 
And  so  the  decision  may  come,  quietly  and  naturally,  as  the  result  of 
some  one  of  these  influences  or  as  the  fruition  of  the  whole  long 
process  of  nurture  that  has  gently  brought  the  soul  to  spiritual  ma- 
turity. In  such  a  life,  indeed,  "  the  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with 
observation." 

But  often  there  is  needed  some  external  occasion,  some  gentle 
shock  or  stimulus,  to  bring  to  a  head  the  impressions  which  have 
been  accumulating  and  to  crystallize  the  convictions.  There  are  many 
ways  in  which  this  stimulus  may  be  applied.  We  shall  consider  only 
three  of  the  more  important :  the  confirmation  class,  decision  day,  and 
the  personal  talk. 

(1)  The  confirniation  class.  Of  all  organized  ways,  this  is  the  best. 
It  is  the  traditional  method  of  liturgical  churches,  such  as  the  Lutheran 
and  Episcopal.     All  denominations  are  coming  in  these  days  to  use  it. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  GOAL  203 

Dr.  Forbush,  himself  a  Congregationalism  gives  an  excellent  summary 
of  it  as  used  in  the  Episcopal  Church  : 

"  In  the  Episcopal  Church,  where  the  catechetical  method  is 
not  a  recent  experiment  or  a  thing  by  itself,  most  of  the  objec- 
tions to  the  use  of  the  catechism  are  met  because  of  its  place 
in  a  larger  system.  It  is  but  one  wheel  of  an  ecclesiastical  ma- 
chine. The  baptized  child  is  accepted  as  a  member  of  the 
ecclesiastical  family,  potentially  regenerate  ;  the  catechism  is 
not  a  matter  of  special  class  instruction,  but  it  is  taught  in  the 
Sunday  school ;  it  is  the  tradition,  and  so  the  expectation,  that 
the  child  will  come  forward  in  adolescence  to  prove  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  catechism  in  the  confirmation  class  ;  instead  of  wait- 
ing for  a  cataclysmal  conversion  and  a  Christian  experience 
before  admitting  the  child  into  full  communion,  the  child  is  ad- 
mitted upon  attaining  a  fitting  age  and  reasonable  knowledge  of 
the  catechism,  and  it  is  believed  that  in  the  solemn  interim 
between  the  confirmation  and  the  first  communion,  in  the  activi- 
ties that  follow  or  in  the  fold  of  the  church  with  maturing  char- 
acter, spiritual  life  will  actually  appear.  As  far  as  the  influence 
of  this  plan  can  be  thrown  about  children,  what  could  be  more 
admirably  planned  to  secure  a  quiet,  normal  Christian  develop- 
ment and  a  minimum  of  loss  of  children  in  their  growth  from 
one  period  to  another  of  life  ? 

"  In  the  non-liturgical  churches  there  must  be  some  theory 
and  scheme  of  the  relation  of  children  to  the  church  which  shall 
make  it  natural  and  expected  that  children  should  enter  full 
communion.  At  present  the  theory,  if  there  be  one,  sometimes 
seems  to  be  that  it  is  not  natural  but  is  rather  surprising  if  this 
takes  place."  * 

Essentially  the  same  could  be  said  of  its  use  in  the  Lutheran  Church. 
The  baptized  child  is  accepted  as  a  member  of  the  church,  and  looked 
upon  as  already  the  subject  of  divine  regeneration — "received,"  as  the 
Augsburg  Confession  so  finely  puts  it,  "  into  the  grace  of  God."  f  He 
is  taught  the  simpler  truths  of  the  catechism  from  his  earliest  years, 
and  is  made  to  look  forward  to  the  day  when  he  can  take  upon  his  own 
shoulders  the  promises  made  for  him  by  his  parents,  and  so  become 

*  Forbush  :  "  The  Boy  Problem,"  p.  119.  For  sake  of  clearness  without  the  eon- 
text,  a  few  words  are  inserted  in  the  first  sentence  of  this  quotation. 

t  Article  IX.:  "  recipiantur  in  gratiam  Dei."  The  translation  "are  received 
into  His  favor  "  is  a  poor  one. 


204  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

a  communicant  member  of  the  church.  No  sudden  conversion  or 
emotional  experience  is  made  a  condition  of  confirmation  ;  the  simple 
act  of  will  is  accepted,  if  examination  shows  that  he  understands  the 
step  he  is  taking.  And  Christian  nurture  does  not  cease  then  ;  but  the 
youth  is  helped  to  ' '  grow  in  grace  and  in  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ." 

The  virtues  of  the  method  are  :  (a)  its  systematic  leading  up  to  de- 
cision ;  (5)  its  use  of  social  suggestion  to  secure  decision  ;  (c)  its  lack 
of  hard  conditions.  It  is  clear  that  to  realize  these  virtues  in  the 
highest  degree,  catechetical  instruction  should  be  a  part  of  the  Sunday 
school's  work.  The  confirmation  class  should  be,  indeed,  elective, 
but  a  part  of  the  Sunday  school  organization  in  the  intermediate  de- 
partment, so  that  pupils  may  feel  it  to  be  but  natural  to  enter  it.  It 
should  be  taught  by  the  pastor,  and  pupils  should  be  allowed  to  sub- 
stitute its  work  for  the  usual  lessons.  Unbaptized  children  should,  of 
course,  be  given  the  same  opportunity  to  receive  catechetical  instruc- 
tion and  to  enter  the  confirmation  class,  as  those  who  have  been  bap- 
tized. 

The  objections  that  have  been  urged  against  the  method  are  :  (a) 
that  it  is  too  dogmatic,  teaching  a  creed  before  the  natural  time  for 
creed  formulation  in  later  adolescence  ;  (b)  that  it  degenerates  into  a 
mere  memory  exercise,  the  child  committing  set  answers  to  questions 
and  dogmatic  forms  which  he  cannot  understand ;  (c)  that  it  is  not 
fair  to  the  child,  entrapping  him  in  a  system  of  religious  organization 
and  instruction  without  his  consent,  and  forcing  decision  too  early  by 
an  undue  use  of  social  suggestion  ;  (d)  that  it  provides  in  practice  as 
real  a  means  of  graduation  from  the  Sunday  school  as  of  entrance  into 
full  church  membership.  All  these  are  real  dangers.  The  first  two 
may  well  be  urged  against  much  catechetical  instruction.  But  they 
are  not  inherent  weaknesses  ;  they  depend  upon  the  instructor,  his  con- 
ception of  religion,  and  his  ability  to  teach.  The  work  of  the  con- 
firmation class  need  not  be,  and  ought  not  to  be,  a  mere  memorizing 
of  dogmas  ;  the  test  of  fitness  for  church  membership  ought  not  be  the 
pupil's  mastery  of  a  doctrinal  system,  but  his  willingness  to  accept  the 
love  of  the  Father  and  his  decision  to  live  in  Jesus'  Way.  The  third 
objection  is  much  the  weakest.  It  may  be  urged  against  any  system 
of  education,  secular  as  well  as  religious.  We  cannot  wait  to  teach 
our  children  until  they  have  grown  able  to  choose  for  themselves  what 
education  they  will  have.  They  are  "  entrapped  "  without  their  con- 
sent in  a  social  order,  just-because  they  are  born  at  all  ;  and  society 
must  perforce  imprint  upon  their  tender  minds  its  own  customs  and 


THE  SPIRITUAL  GOAL  205 

ideals.  To  deny  to  a  child  any  particular  type  of  education  is  to  edu- 
cate him  away  from  it,  without  his  consent.  To  refuse  to  give  religious 
instruction  until  the  child  can  choose  for  himself  whether  he  wants  it, 
is  to  train  him  to  be  irreligious,  without  his  consent.  The  real  ques- 
tion in  the  early  education  of  a  child  is  not,  Does  the  child  want  re- 
ligion ?  but  Do  we  want  it  ?  How  seriously  do  we  take  it  ?  Do  we 
feel  it  to  be  one  of  humanity's  vital  interests  ?  If  we  are  ourselves  in 
earnest  about  religion,  we  shall  not  hesitate  to  begin  as  early  as  we  can 
to  teach  it  to  our  children.  The  fourth  objection  brings  out  the  greatest 
danger.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  pupil  may  look  upon  his  con- 
firmation as  a  graduation  from  set  religious  instruction,  and  may  fail 
rightly  to  use  his  new  freedom.  He  may  feel  that,  having  passed 
through  all  the  forms  needed  to  make  him  a  member  of  the  church,  he 
is  spiritually  complete.  And  so  what  should  be  the  beginning  of  a 
mature  spiritual  life  becomes  the  end  of  all  growth.  Let  us  not  as 
teachers  deceive  ourselves.  We  face,  indeed,  a  different  problem  after 
decision,  but  a  problem  as  real  as  that  of  getting  the  decision. 

(2)  Decision  Day.  A  plan  tried  in  many  quarters  is  to  set  aside  a 
day  for  spiritual  ingathering,  when  all  pupils  who  have  not  conse- 
crated themselves  to  God  are  urged  to  make  the  decision.  Usually 
cards  are  passed  raround  to  be  signed,  stating  the  desire  to  lead  a 
Christian  life.  The  best  form  of  card,  perhaps,  is  one  that  may  be 
signed  by  every  pupil,  with  four  spaces  in  which  the  name  may  be  en- 
tered as  "Professing  Christian  and  church  member,"  "Professing 
Christian  but  not  a  church  member,"  "  Not  a  professing  Christian," 
", God  helping  me,  I  choose  henceforth  to  lead  a  Christian  life."  *  A 
religious  census  of  the  school  is  thus  taken,  and  embarrassment  is 
avoided,  as  everyone  signs  a  card. 

(a)  It  is  evident  that  in  any  case  the  method  does  not  do  away  with 
the  pastor's  class  for  instruction  preparatory  to  the  assumption  of  the 
vows  of  full  church  membership.  It  is,  in  general,  but  one  way  of 
getting  pupils  to  decide  to  enroll  themselves  in  that  class.  And  if  the 
system  of  catechetical  instruction  be  properly  organized,  there  will  be 
no  need  of  such  a  method. 

(5)  The  value  of  this  form  of  social  suggestion  is  questionable.  To 
sign  papers  is  contagious.  It  is  common  to  have  nearly  a  whole  class 
sign  or  refuse  to  sign.  Where  the  real  stimulus  is  simply  to  "be  with 
the  rest  of  the  fellows"  on  a  day  of  this  sort,  the  results  are  apt  to  be 
ephemeral.  This  form  of  social  suggestion  must  be  carefully  distin- 
guished from  that  of  the  long  course  of  instruction,  with  confirmation 
as  its  natural  issue,  of  which  we  have  just  been  thinking. 

*  Mead  :  "  Modern  Methods  in  Sunday  School  Work,"  p.  249. 


206  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

(e)  The  appeal  to  make  the  decision  should  be  individual,  rather 
than  collective.  It  is  a  question  whether  we  have  a  right  to  make 
young  people  just  entering  their  teens  face  the  great  alternative  in  a 
bunch.     They  need  personal,  face-to-face  friendship  and  help. 

"  In  one  warmly  evangelistic  church,  two  years  ago,  one  hun- 
dred and  fifteen  cards  were  signed.  Of  these,  twenty  have  since 
joined  the  church.  .  .  .  Then  there  is  the  leakage,  the  waste, 
the  possible  alienation.  When  one  hundred  and  fifteen  signed, 
over  three  hundred  refused  to  sign.  Is  it  not  possible  that  these 
three  hundred  believe  that  they  have  thus  disowned  Christ  ?  It 
seemed  a  daring  act,  but  the  heavens  did  not  fall  nor  the  light- 
ning strike  ;  next  year  it  becomes  easier  to  refrain.  Is  it  whole- 
some thus  to  lead  young  souls  up  to  the  great  alternative  and 
let  the  will  fail,  and  do  it  year  after  year  ?  "  * 

(3)  The  Personal  talk.  Whether  or  not  there  is  systematic  cate- 
chetical instruction,  the  actual  getting  the  pupil  to  decide  depends  al- 
most always  upon  a  personal  word.  The  decision  is  individual,  and 
the  alternative  must  be  presented  to  each  pupil  for  himself.  And  it 
must  be  in  private. 

"  It  is  a  cowardly  thing  to  say  personal  things  and  ask  search- 
ing questions  of  a  boy  in  the  midst  of  his  fellows  which  you 
would  not  dare  to  ask  that  boy  privately  in  ordinary  conversa- 
tion. It  is  to  protect  these  reserves  thus  rudely  assaulted  that  a 
boy  puts  on  with  his  Sunday  suit  a  disguise  which  he  carries  to 
the  hand-to-hand  encounters  of  the  Sunday  school  and  junior 
society.  The  teaching  which  merely  touches  that  artificial  boy- 
hood will  be  easily  slipped  off  when  the  disguise  is  removed 
Sunday  evening  and  the  boy  goes  forth  to  the  sport  and  freedom 
of  Monday."  f 
It  is  undoubtedly  harder  to  talk  to  one  boy  about  religion  than  to 

*  Forbush  :  "  The  Boy  Problem,"  p.  124.  Dr.  Forbush's  whole  discussion  of  this 
matter  is  eminently  sensible.  "  The  appointing  of  a  State  Decision  Day  and  tab- 
ulating the  totals  from  the  day  smacks  of  loving  children  statistically.  ...  As  the 
years  go  by  I  confess  a  growing  distaste  for  the  noise,  the  rush  and  the  tremor  of 
great  machine^,  and  a  deeper  desire  in  any  natural  way  possible  to  know  my 
boys  and  girls  so  well  that  I  may  help  keep  them  safe  until  the  time  when  that 
finest  of  all  spiritual  fruitages  comes,  as  the  one  hundred  and  tenth  Psalm  so 
beautifully  describes  it  : 

"  '  On  holy  mountains  out  of  the  lap  of  the  dawn 

The  dew  of  Thy  young  soldiery  offers  itself  to  Thee.'  " 

f  Forbush  :  "  The  Boy  Problem,"  p.  180. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  GOAL  207 

talk  to  ten  ;  it  takes  more  courage  to  ask  personal  questions  in  a  pri- 
vate conversation  than  in  a  class  discussion.  But  that  is  because  they 
mean  infinitely  more.  If  you  are  really  earnest  about  your  work,  you 
will  at  some  time  or  other  ask  each  of  your  pupils  to  decide  this  great- 
est of  life's  issues.  It  is  a  holy  task,  and  you  may  well  tremble  before 
it.  But  to  win  a  soul  is  the  greatest  thing  that  life  can  bring  you.  Did 
you  ever  notice  the  marginal  reading  of  the  great  promise  with  which 
the  book  of  Daniel  ends?  "  The  teachers"'  it  says,  "shall  shine  as 
the  brightness  of  the  firmament ;  and  they  that  turn  many  to  right- 
eousness as  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever." 

Do  not  overdo.  Do  not  ask  your  pupil  too  often,  or  too  many  per- 
sonal questions.  Life's  deepest  issues  are  too  sacred  to  be  talked  of 
glibly.  You  may  easily  enough  make  yourself  a  bore  and  alienate  the 
boy  you  would  win,  if  you  say  too  much  about  his  soul.  Be  natural. 
Do  not  use  "  pious"  phraseology.  Talk  to  him  directly,  as  friend  to 
friend,  and  in  the  speech  of  common  life.  Pick  your  time  carefully. 
Watch  your  opportunities.  Do  not  fail  unless  you  must.  Every  time 
that  you  put  the  alternative  to  a  pupil  and  fail  to  win  him,  you  make  it 
easier  for  him  to  refuse  again.  "HI  had  not  come  and  spoken  unto 
them,  they  had  not  had  sin  ;  but  now  they  have  no  excuse  for  their 
sin." 

4.  After  the  decision  we  shall  help  the  youth  to  carry  it  out  in 
actual  life  and  service,  and  so  to  come  to  the  full  maturity  of  spiritual 
manhood.  Our  special  problem  in  these  years  is  to  meet  the  intel- 
lectual and  practical  needs  of  later  adolescence.  After  expansion,  con- 
centration. Life's  dream-time  is  past ;  now  it  faces  reality.  Shall  re- 
ligion be  lost  through  disuse  or  doubt?  Shall  the  decision  of  early 
adolescence  melt  away  with  other  aspirations  of  those  days  of  vision  ? 
Or  shall  it  remain  the  very  center  of  life  as  it  concentrates  its  energies 
and  acquires  individuality  ? 

We  have  already  thought  of  the  characteristics  of  later  adolescence, 
and  of  its  needs.*  We  need  add  little  now.  We  then  spoke  of  three 
great  reconstructive  forces— education,  love  and  social  service.  These 
same  three  we  must  use  as  we  seek  to  meet  the  religious  needs  of  youth. 
We  now  understand  them  better,  however.  Let  us  reverse  their  order 
and  enlarge  their  scope.  Work,  friendship  and  knoivledge  are  the  three 
great  agencies  of  spiritual  nurture  in  that  critical  period  between  deci- 
sion and  full  maturity— work,  because  the  youth  is  intensely  practical  ; 
friendship,  because  he  is  just  taking  his  place  in  the  great  wide  world  ; 
knowledge,  because,  a  doubter  and  a  creed-maker,  he  is  forming  those 

*  See  L,esson  VII. 


208  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

ideas  of  life  and  the  world  about  him  that  he  will  likely  keep  to  the 
end  of  his  days. 

In  all  three  the  demand  of  the  youth  is  for  reality.  The  work  you 
set  for  him  must  be  real— something  that  the  world  needs,  that  some- 
one must  do  or  it  will  suffer  lack.  The  friendship  you  give  him  must 
be  genuine  and  whole-hearted,  with  no  condescension  or  uneasy  sense 
of  an  ulterior  motive.  The  knowledge  with  which  you  seek  to  meet 
his  doubts  must  be  adequate  and  true,  with  no  shifting  of  issues  or 
falling  back  upon  mere  authority.  Yet  often  enough  the  church  and 
Sunday  school  have  failed  to  meet  this  demand  for  reality.  In  place 
of  knowledge,  they  have  been  heard  to  offer  but  the  wearisome 
reiteration  of  texts.  For  friendship,  there  have  sometimes  been 
"calls"  and  "sociables";  for  work,  a  self-centered  ecclesiastical 
pottering  about. 

"Of  the  dozens  of  young  women  who  have  begged  me  to 
make  a  connection  for  them  between  their  dreams  of  social  use- 
fulness and  their  actual  living  I  recall  one  of  the  many  whom  I 
had  sent  back  to  her  clergyman,  returning  with  this  remark  : 
'  His  only  suggestion  was  that  I  should  be  responsible  every 
Sunday  for  fresh  flowers  upon  the  altar.  I  did  that  when  I  was 
fifteen,  and  liked  it  then  ;  but  when  you  have  come  back  from 
college  and  are  twenty-two  years  old,  it  doesn't  quite  fit  in  with 
the  vigorous  efforts  you  have  been  told  are  necessary  in  order  to 
make  our  social  relations  more  Christian.'  "  * 

Happily,  pastors  of  this  sort  are  coming  to  be  few.  The  church 
and  Sunday  school  of  our  day  are  meeting  the  demand  for  reality. 
Intellectually,  socially,  practically — in  knowledge,  friendship  and  work 
— the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  is  to-day  stronger  and  more  virile  than 
ever  before.  Its  mood  is  objective.  It  sees  in  itself  an  organization 
for  work.  It  will  be  content  with  nothing  less  than  social  regenera- 
tion ;  and  it  means  business.  Every  teacher  should  catch  the  vision 
of  twentieth  century  Christianity,  and  make  his  own  its  intellectual 
vigor,  its  business  methods  and  its  concrete  devotion  to  social  ends. 
Teaching  in  this  spirit,  he  will  keep  his  pupils  and  lead  them  "from 
strength  to  strength,"  till  "every  one  of  them  appeareth  before  God 
in  Zion." 

*  Addams  :  "  The  Spirit  of  Youth  and  the  City  Streets,"  p.  160. 


THE  SPI RITUAL  GOAL  209 

QUESTIONS 

i.  What  is  the  natural  time  for  spiritual  decision  ?    Why  ? 

2.  Why  should  the  act  of  will  rather  than  an  emotional  experience 
or  the  intellectual  possession  of  dogmas  be  made  the  condition  of  en- 
trance upon  full  church  membership? 

3.  How  early  in  life  may  we  begin  to  make  ready  for  the  decision  ? 
What  are  the  chief  agencies  of  spiritual  nurture  which  we  may  employ  ? 

4.  Should  the  teacher  make  a  practice  of  stating  the  moral  and 
spiritual  application  of  the  lessons  to  the  lives  of  his  pupils,  or  should 
he  let  them  make  the  application?    Give  reasons  for  your  answer. 

5.  What  authority  should  the  teacher  have  for  his  teaching  ?  What 
authority  should  he  impress  upon  his  pupils  ?    Give  reasons  for  this. 

6.  Compare  direct  with  indirect  suggestion  as  a  means  of  applying 
the  truth  to  the  lives  of  pupils.  Show  how  methods  must  differ  in  the 
various  grades. 

7.  What  factors  contribute  to  the  spiritual  atmosphere  of  the  Sun- 
day school  ?    Show  how  it  may  be  made  spiritually  uplifting. 

9.  What  should  be  the  aim  and  character  of  worship  in  the  Sun- 
day school  ? 

9.  What  can  we  do  to  use  most  effectively  toward  spiritual  ends 
the  power  of  personal  influence  ? 

10.  How  can  the  life  of  children  in  social  service  be  made  an  agency 
of  spiritual  nurture  ? 

11.  What  are  the  positive  values  of  the  confirmation  class  as  a  meth- 
od of  getting  the  young  to  accept  God's  love  and  enter  His  Church? 

12.  Discuss  the  objections  to  the  catechetical  method  and  the  con- 
firmation class. 

13.  Discuss  the  value  of  Decision  Day  as  a  method  of  securing  spir- 
itual decision. 

14.  Why  is  a  personal  talk  or  question  nearly  always  nteded  to 
secure  the  pupil's  decision  to  serve  God?  What  cautions  should  the 
teacher  bear  in  mind  in  undertaking  this  personal  work  ? 

15.  Discuss  the  teacher's  problem  after  his  pupils  have  made  the 
decision  and  entered  into  full  church  membership. 

14 


LESSON  XXI 
•     The  Ideal  Teacher  :  Jesus 

There  remains  to  be  said  about  our  work  the  one  thing  that,  more 
than  all  others,  expresses  its  dignity  and  worth.  //  teas  Jesus'  work. 
He,  too,  was  a  teacher.  We  stand,  therefore,  in  a  unique  relation  to 
Him.  Other  men,  indeed,  may  do  His  will  as  completely  as  do  we.  On 
the  farm  and  in  the  shop,  behind  the  counter  and  at  the  office  desk,  men 
can  and  do  follow  Him.  The  life  may  be  His,  whatever  its  outward 
form.  Its  Way  may  be  His,  through  whatever  thickets  of  circum- 
stance the  path  of  duty  may  lie.  But  we,  who  have  chosen  to  teach,' 
follow  directly  in  His  footsteps.  We  make  His  own  business  ours. 
And  so  He  is  our  Ideal,  not  only  in  the  general  sense  in  which  we 
share  His  example  with  all  humanity,  but  in  the  very  particular  form 
of  His  words  and  deeds.  He  is  not  only  the  Ideal  Man  ;  He  is  our 
Ideal  Teacher. 

We  remember  how,  time  and  again  throughout  our  study,  when  we 
sought  a  concrete  example  to  illustrate  the  principle  of  teaching  of 
which  we  were  thinking  at  the  moment,  we  went  to  Jesus'  life.  He 
was  the  Master  Teacher  of  all  time.  No  other  could  have  taken  a 
dozen  unlearned  countrymen,  and  in  less  than  three  years  have  so 
taught  them  that  he  could  leave  his  own  work  in  their  hands.  No 
other's  teaching  has  been  so  naturally  and  immediately  adapted  to  the 
particular  situations  he  faced,  and  yet  so  universal  in  its  truth  and 
eternal  in  its  appeal,  unbound  by  time  and  place.  Yes,  it  may  be  said, 
but  that  was  because  He  was  the  Son  of  God.  That  is  true.  But  it  is 
just  as  true  that  Jesus'  teaching  had  the  wonderful  power  it  had  be- 
cause He  knew  how  to  teach. 

There  is  no  space,  in  this  brief  lesson,  to  discuss  Jesus'  methods  of 
teaching  with  even  an  approach  to  adequacy  of  treatment.  And  it  is 
perhaps  as  well.  Ideals  are  to  be  seen  and  followed,  rather  than  talked 
about.  What  we  need  is  not  so  much  a  description  of  Jesus'  methods 
as  a  concrete  acquaintance  with  them.  We  must  study  them  for  our- 
selves as  they  are  recorded  in  the  gospels,  grasping  not  only  the  out- 
ward form  but  the  inner  spirit.  There  is  no  better  training  for  a  Sun- 
day school  teacher  than  a  careful  study  of  the  life  of  Christ,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  His  character  as  a  teacher.  This  chapter  aims  only 
to  present  an  outline  for  such  a-study. 

(210) 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER:  JESUS  211 

i.  Jesus  taught,  as  any  true  teacher  will,  both  by  wurd  and  deed. 
We  find,  first  of  all,  that  His  sayings  reveal  the  methods  of  an 

Ideal  Teacher.  He  taught  by  illustration,  story  and  question.  His 
lessons  had  preparation,  presentation  and  conclusion.  He  began 
always  by  finding  a  point  of  contact;  He  presented  essentials  only; 
and  He  reached  a  definite  conclusion. 

(i )  What  most  immediately  impresses  one  who  reads  the  sayings  of 
Jesus  is  His  remarkably  effective  use  of  illustrations/  His  teaching 
was  never  abstract.  He  aimed,  as  Wendt  says,  at  popular  intelligi- 
bility ;  and  He  succeeded  as  no  other  teacher 'ever  has.  He  always 
accompanied  the  statement  of  a  general  principle  with  a  particular  and 
concrete  example.  He  was  ever  ready  with  a  comparison  or  an  apt 
analogy.  With  figures  of  speech  and  stories  he  made  the  truth  plain 
to  the  common  man. 

(2)  He  was  a  wonderful  story-teller.  His  stories  were  short,  simple 
and  full  of  action.  They  had  point.  He  knew  when  to  tell  one  ;  and 
He  always  told  it  well.  Even  as  we  read  them  now,  they  make  us 
see  the  things  they  tell. 

(3)  He  was  a  good  questioner.  He  taught,  not  so  much  by  lecture, 
as  by  conversation.  He  tried  to  make  His  hearers  think  for  them- 
selves. He  understood  the  value  of  cooperation  between  teacher  and 
pupil  in  discovering  the  truth.  The  man  who  came  to  Him  with  a 
question  was  usually  asked  one  in  return,  and  from  His  answer  the 
truth  was  developed.  "  What  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life  ?  "  asked 
a  lawyer.  ' '  What  is  written  in  the  Law  ?  how  readest  thou  ? ' '  was 
the  answer.  When  Simon  worried  over  the  presence  of  a  sinful 
woman,  Jesus  told  the  story  of  a  creditor  who  forgave  two  debtors, 
the  one  a  large  sum  and  the  other  a  small  one.  "Tell  me,  therefore, 
which  of  them  will  love  him  most?"  "  He,  I  suppose,  to  whom  he 
forgave  the  most."  "  Thou  hast  rightly  judged."  Then  He  went  on 
to  make  clear,  not  only  the  right  attitude  in  this  particular  case,  but 
the  great  principle  of  love  and  tolerance  which  is  involved. 

Jesus  was  not  afraid,  when  the  occasion  demanded  it,  to  use  the 
question  in  His  own  defence.  When  the  priests  asked  concerning  His 
authority  as  a  teacher,  He  put  them  on  the  horns  of  a  dilemma.  "The 
baptism  of  John,  whence  was  it,  from  heaven  or  from  men?  "  They 
dared  not  answer.  "  Neither  tell  I  you  by  what  authority  I  do  these 
things."  Then  He  asked  another  question  and  told  a  story:  "But 
what  think  ye?  A  man  had  two  sons  ;  and  he  came  to  the  first,  and 
said,  Son,  go  work  today  in  the  vineyard.  And  he  answered  and  said, 
I   will  not :  but  afterward  he  repented   himself,  and  went.     And  he 


212  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

came  to  the  second,  and  said  likewise.  And  he  answered  and  said,  I 
go,  sir  :  and  went  not.  Which  of  the  two  did  the  will  of  his  father?" 
They  said,  "The  first."  "  Verily  I  say  unto  you,"  answered  Jesus, 
"that  the  publicans  and  the  harlots  go  into  the  kingdom  of  God  before 
you.  For  John  came  unto  you  in  the  way  of  righteousness,  and  ye 
believed  him  not  ;  but  the  publicans  and  the  harlots  believed  him  :  and 
ye,  when  ye  saw  it,  did  not  even  repent  yourselves  afterward,  that  ye 
might  believe  him." 

(4)  Jesus  always  found  a  point  of  contact.  His  teaching  moved 
upon  the  plane  of  His  hearers'  own  experience.  His  illustrations 
were  drawn  from  nature  about  Him  and  from  the  common  life  of  the 
people ;  His  stories  were  of  events  such  as  happened  every  day. 
Moreover,  in  every  case  where  we  have  record  of  the  particular  cir- 
cumstances, we  find  that  His  teaching  grew  out  of  the  immediate 
situation.  It  was  in  answer  to  the  spoken  question  or  to  the  unspoken 
interests  and  needs  of  those  whom  He  addressed.  He  called  the 
fishermen  of  Galilee  to  be  "  fishers  of  men  "  ;  He  bound  Nathaniel  to 
Him  by  showing  that  He  understood  the  inward  longings  of  his  heart ; 
to  the  woman  He  chanced  to  meet  at  Jacob's  well,  He  spoke  of  the 
"  water  of  life"  ;  to  the  multitude  who  would  make  Him  king  because 
He  had  fed  them,  He  preached  about  the  "bread  of  life."  He  often 
asked,  as  He  did  the  lawyer,  some  question  that  would  bring  out  what 
His  hearer  already  knew  or  thought  of  the  matter  in  hand  ;  and  He 
used  these  old  ideas  then  as  a  basis  for  the  new. 

(5)  Jesus'  teaching  dealt  with  essentials.  With  all  His  concrete- 
ness,  He  never  moved  upon  the  surface  of  things.  His  illustrations 
never  tied  Him  down  to  mere  particulars  ;  His  popularity  of  exposi- 
tion never  begat  shallowness  of  insight.  He  always  grasped  the  great 
principle  that  underlay  any  issue  that  presented  itself  to  Him  ;  and  He 
always  succeeded  in  making  that  principle  clear.  He  seems,  indeed, 
to  have  deliberately  aimed  at  "  the  greatest  clearness  in  the  briefest 
compass.'"*  In  selecting  examples  and  illustrations,  He  always  chose 
such  as  brought  out  in  the  boldest  possible  relief  the  principle  He  was 
seeking  to  impress.  Even  if  our  brother  is  in  the  wrong,  it  is  our 
duty  to  seek  him  that  we  may  be  reconciled  ;  even  if  one  wantonly 
smites  us,  the  obligation  holds  to  return  evil  with  good.  If  an  unjust 
j  udge  ' '  who  feared  not  God  and  regarded  not  man ' '  will  grant  the  prayer 
of  a  poor  widow,  just  because  he  gets  tired  of  her  continual  coming, 
shall  not  the  good  God  hear  the  prayers  of  His  children  ?    To  make 

*Wendt  :  "  The  Teaching  of  Jesus,"  Vol.  I.,  p.   130.     Wendt's  treatment  of  this 
point  is  illuminating. 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER:  JESUS  213 

clear  how  completely  service  in  God's  kingdom  must  be  free  from  the 
ulterior  motive  of  reward,  He  told  the  story  of  a  householder  who 
paid  for  one  hour's  labor  the  same  wage  as  for  twelve — "so  the  last 
shall  be  first  and  the  first  last."  It  is  an  exaggeration;  but  an  ex- 
aggeration that  brings  out  with  unmistakable  clearness  the  point  that 
1  [e  wished  to  make. 

(6)  Jesus  ahuays  brought  out  of  His  lessons  a  definite  eouetusion. 
Most  often,  moreover,  He  succeeded  in  making  His  pupils  reach  that 
cc  lclusion  for  themselves.  We  recall  the  examples  of  His  use  of  in- 
direct suggestion  cited  in  the  last  chapter,  and  those  of  His  power  as 
a  questioner  in  this. 

Wendt  sums  up  as  follows  the  impression  to  be  gained  from  a  care- 
ful study  of  Jesus'  methods  as  revealed  in  His  sayings  : 

"  A  review  of  the  characteristic  features  of  Jesus'  method  of 
teaching  proves  what  a  wonderful  art  and  power  of  popular  elo- 
quence he  possessed.  He  avoided  pedantic  modes  of  teaching 
and  the  petty  arts  of  the  scholastic  learning.  The  particular 
methods  He  employed  by  preference  were  not  indeed  new,  but 
were  rather  the  customary  and  natural  means  of  popular  dis- 
course ;  yet  He  handled  them  with  greater  ease  and  precision, 
and  with  higher  originality  in  details,  than  other  teachers.  A 
rich  fancy  and  an  acute  judgment  were  His  equipment — a  fancy 
which  provided  Him  with  ever  fresh  material  for  His  examples, 
pictures  and  similitudes  ;  acuteness  of  judgment,  which  enabled 
Him  to  grasp  the  essential  point  in  the  instance  on  hand,  and  to 
find  the  fittest  phraseology  and  forms  of  presentation  whereby 
the  weightiest  thoughts  should  be  most  forcibly  expressed.  We 
can  well  understand  how  the  discourses  of  Jesus,  even  apart 
from  the  significance  of  their  contents,  would  fill  the  hearers 
with  admiration  by  their  natural,  lucid  and  pithy  style,  and  force 
the  declaration  from  their  lips  :  '  He  speaks  as  one  that  hath 
authority,  and  not  as  the  scribes  ; '  that  is,  not  from  a  limited 
.stock  of  traditional  apparatus  laboriously  applied,  but  in  sov- 
ereign disposal  of  an  abundance  of  power,  like  a  true  orator  '  by 
the  grace  of  God.'  .  .  . 

"  What,  however,  is  above  all  wonderful  here  is,  that  the  man 
who  had  such  rich  material  of  popular  eloquence  at  command,  has 
used  it  ever  in  strict  subservience  to  the  purposes  of  the  religious 
thoughts  to  whose  announcement  He  devoted  His  life.  Through- 
out His  recorded  discourses  wc  never  find  that  He  has  given 
free  play  to  His  fancy  in  order  merely  to  please  Himself  and 


214  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

others,  or  for  the  sake  of  showy  embellishment.  Never  has  He 
employed  His  sharpness  of  judgment  for  the  mere  purpose  of 
exercising  His  dialectic  skill  upon  His  own  thoughts  or  those  of 
others,  or  beyond  what  was  called  for  in  order  to  the  illustration 
or  exposition,  the  establishment  or  confutation,  of  those  thoughts, 
The  artistic  form  of  speech  was  never  with  Him  an  end  in  itself, 
so  as  to  turn  attention  upon  itself  and  away  from  the  matter  of 
discourse.  The  one  aim  of  Jesus  in  regard  to  style  and  method 
was  to  make  His  meaning  plain,  and  show  the  importance  of 
His  ideas.  Therefore,  He  never  used  the  arts  of  speech  in 
order  to  beguile  His  hearers  by  too  lightly  carrying  them  over 
the  difficulties  of  His  teaching,  or  smoothing  over  its  offensive 
strictness.  On  the  contrary,  He  has  everywhere  spoken  with 
perfect  plainness,  and  has  uttered,  with  the  utmost  strictness, 
unpalatable  declarations  and  hard  commands,  which  practically 
followed  from  His  teaching,  without  ever  palliating  them  or 
making  concessions.  He  employed,  indeed,  all  his  skill  and 
power  of  speech  in  order  to  convince  His  hearers  of  the  truth  of 
His  statements  and  the  rightful  authority  of  His  precepts.  It 
was  no  object  of  His  to  present  His  teaching  as  something 
specially  novel  and  peculiar,  and,  because  of  its  higher  and 
supernatural  theme,  as  something  strangely  contrasted  with 
natural  and  earthly  knowledge.  He  has,  indeed,  intentionally 
emphasized  the  relationship  of  what  He  taught  and  commanded 
to  the  ordinary  earthly  phenomena  and  the  common  modes  of 
human  conduct.  No  facts  of  nature  or  of  human  life  appeared 
too  small  to  be  unable  to  aid  Him  in  bringing  His  teaching  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  home  to  the  human  understanding."  ¥ 

2.  Jesus  taught  as  well  by  what  He  did  as  by  what  He  said.  His 
actions,  too,  were  those  of  an  Ideal  Teacher. 

( i )  He  frequently  taught  by  object-lessons.  When  the  disciples  asked 
who  should  be  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  he  set  a  little 
child  before  them.  At  their  last  supper  together,  He  girded  Himself  as 
a  servant  and  washed  their  feet.  Many  of  His  miracles  were  lessons 
as  well.  The  curse  of  the  barren  fig-tree,  for  example,  can  be  under- 
stood in  no  other  light.     It  was  an  acted  parable. 

*  Wendt  :  "  The  Teaching  of  Jesus,"  Vol.  I.,  pp.  14S-151.  The  chapter  from  which 
this  is  taken,  on  "  The  External  Form  of  the  Teaching  of  Jesus,"  is  the  best  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  for  the  teacher  to  read.  Stevens'  little  book  on  "  The  Teach- 
ing of  Jesus"  is  excellent,  as  is  also  the  brief  treatment  in  Sanday's  article  on 
"Jesus  Christ  "  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible. 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  :  JESUS  215 

(2)  Both  His  words  and  His  actions  were  socially  motived.  Jesus 
lived  among  men,  and  entered  naturally  and  wholesomely  into  their 
social  relations.  His  teaching  has  been  called  unsystematic.  It  was 
so  in  a  sense.  He  taught  no  formal  system  of  dogmas  ;  He  took  no 
pains  to  begin  one  lesson  where  the  last  had  left  off.     He  did  not  keep 

.  set  school,  and  seems  to  have  cared  little  for  the  precise  theoretical 
organization  of  the  truth  within  the  minds  of  His  disciples.  But  His 
teaching  was  thus  unsystematic  simply  because  it  was  so  vital.  He 
taught,  not  subjects  or  creeds,  but  men.  What  He  said  and  did  always 
bore  an  immediate  relation  to  the  situation  He  was  in,  and  to  the  needs 
and  aspirations  of  those  before  Him. 

(3)  His  training  of  the  twelve  was  by  life  with  them  and  for  them. 
He  has  given  us  in  this  a  perfect  example  of  education  through  social 
association  in  a  common  task.  Not  content  merely  to  teach  them  by 
word  of  mouth,  He  bade  them  follow  Him.  He  gave  Himself  to  them, 
and  gave  them  work  to  do  for  Him.  They  went  with  Him  in  His 
journeys  ;  they  dwelt  constantly  in  His  presence.  They  helped  Him 
preach  His  kingdom  ;  they  too  worked  miracles.  He  even  sent  them 
out  for  themselves,  to  travel  throughout  the  land  teaching  and  healing. 
He  was  preparing  them  to  take  His  place  and  to  carry  on  His  work  ; 
and  He  prepared  them  thoroughly.  They  learned  by  doing.  They 
caught  His  spirit  by  association  with  Him.  Through  knowledge, 
friendship  and  work  He  brought  them  to  spiritual  maturity. 

(4)  fesus  was  Himself  the  embodiment  of  all  that  He  taught.  Here 
was  the  secret  of  His  power,  both  with  those  He  met  in  ordinary  social 
ways  and  with  the  chosen  band  of  twelve.  His  was  the  example  and 
influence  of  a  Perfect  Life.  He  was  Himself  the  Ideal  that  He  sought 
to  teach. 

3.  In  knowledge  Jesus  was  an  Ideal  Teacher.  He  knew  the 
truth  ;  and  He  knew  men.  There  was  never  doubt  or  question  in 
His  mind  as  to  what  to  teach.  His  vision  penetrated  beneath  every 
husk  of  circumstance  to  the  great  essential  truth  of  God.  No  more  did 
He  hesitate  over  the  right  way  to  approach  particular  men.  He  under- 
stood human  nature.  He  was  quick  to  discern  the  needs  of  the  sinful, 
the  doubting,  the  self-righteous,  the  perverse  and  the  slow  to  compre- 
hend. And  He  knew  how  to  meet  them,  each  in  his  own  way.  He 
recognized  fundamental  differences  of  temperament  and  habitual  atti- 
tude. There  was  deep  insight  and  shrewd  practical  wisdom  as  well  as 
patient  love  in  the  way  that,  day  after  day,  he  handled  the  impulsive 
Peter.  Very  different,  yet  just  as  wise  and  loving,  was  His  treatment 
of  Thomas,  honest  and  slow  to  comprehend. 


210  LUTHERAN  TEACHER-TRAINING  SERIES 

4.  The  source  of  Jesus'  knowledge  and  authority  made  of 
Him  an  Ideal  Teacher.  It  was  in  His  perfect  sonship  to  God.  And 
by  sonship  we  here  mean  not  His  unique  position  as  the  eternal  Son  of 
God,  but  rather  His  maintenance  throughout  His  earthly  life  of  the 
filial  relation  to  God.  He  lived  always  in  His  Father's  presence.  He 
let  nothing  cloud  His  vision  of  the  Father's  Will.  He  kept  the  way 
always  open  between  His  mind  and  that  of  God  ;  and  His  heart  re- 
turned the  love  that  the  Father's  heart  bestowed  upon  Him.  It  was 
from  this  source — this  perfect  filial  relation — that  He  drew  the  strength 
that  kept  Him  sinless,  and  the  truth  that  He  taught  with  the  freedom 
and  authority  of  perfect  inward  conviction.  And  this  source  of  life  and 
truth,  let  it  never  be  forgotten,  is  the  deepest  need  of  every  man  that 
would  teach  another. 

5.  Jesus'  supreme  faith  made  Him  an  Ideal  Teacher.  He  had 
supreme  faith  in  God,  the  Father  who  had  sent  Him.  He  had  su- 
preme faith  in  men — in  the  goodness  of  their  fundamental  instincts 
and  aspirations,  in  the  possibility  of  their  redemption  from  sin,  in 
their  sonship  to  God  and  their  eternal  worth.  He  had  a  supreme 
faith  in  His  work — the  redemption  of  men  and  the  establishment  of 
the  kingdom  of  God.  He  never  doubted  its  worth  or  its  ultimate 
success. 

Jesus  manifested  His  faith,  not  only  in  all  that  He  said,  but  even 
more  in  what  He  did.  He  gave  His  life  for  men.  And  He  did  it 
gladly,  because  of  His  faith  in  men.  A  less  great  teacher  would  have 
wanted  to  live  longer,  to  teach  a  little  more,  to  make  more  sure  that 
his  pupils  could  carry  on  his  work  after  him.  One  of  less  faith 
would  have  feared  to  entrust  the  spreading  of  the  gospel  to  a  group  of 
disciples  whom  he  had  taught  but  three  years,  and  who  had  been  so 
slow  to  learn.  But  Jesus  ceased  His  earthly  teaching  and  left  this 
mortal  life  willingly,  with  supreme  faith  in  the  men  whom  He  had 
trained  to  take  up  His  work  as  well  as  in  the  Father  whose  work  it 
was  and  is. 

Let  us  draw  from  this  our  parting  lesson.  The  teacher  needs  to  be  a 
mati  of  faith.  There  are  many  times  when  our  work  seems  empty 
and  success  far  away  :  and  we  may  easily  enough  wonder  whether  it 
is  really  worth  while.  May  God  help  us  then  to  hold  fast  to  our 
faith.  And  we  need,  above  all  else,  the  kind  of  faith  that  can  give  up 
when  the  time  comes,  and  let  another  go  on  with  the  work  that  we 
have  been  able  to  do  only  that  far.  The  teacher's  work  is  by  its  very 
nature  vicarious.  We  teach  that  another  may  know.  We  serve  that 
our  pupils  may  become  able  to  dispense  with  our  service.     We  begin 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  :  JESUS  217 

a  work  within  them  that  they  must  finish  for  themselves.  We  all  need 
to  pray  for  the  love  that  will  move  us  to  lay  down  our  life  for  our 
pupils,  and  for  the  faith  that  will  gladly  entrust  to  them  the  work  that 
we  can  never  finish. 

QUESTIONS 

Will  you  read  through  one  of  the  gospels,  considering  Jesus'  life 
from  the  standpoint  taken  in  this  chapter  ?  Make  an  outline  of  the 
points  brought  out  in  the  chapter,  and  find  illustrations  from  the  gos- 
pel for  each  of  them.  Take  several  of  Jesus'  parables,  and  show  in 
detail  how  they  meet  the  requirements  of  good  story-telling  and  of 
effective  illustration,  and  how  they  show  Jesus'  ability  to  bring  out 
essential  points  clearly  and  vividly.  Make  a  list  of  questions  that 
Jesus  asked,  and  see  how  He  made  them  serve  the  purposes  of  His 
teaching.  Find  instances  of  His  perfect  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
and  His  ability  to  adapt  His  teaching  to  the  needs  of  the  individual. 
Find  some  of  the  sayings  and  acts  that  prove  His  supreme  faith  in 
God,  in  men,  and  in  His  work. 


Lutheran  Teacher-Training 

Series 


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In  addition  to  this  volume,  the  Lutheran  Teacher- 
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BOOK  ONE 

THE  BOOK  AND  THE  MESSAGE 

Part  I,  by  Herbert  C.  Allemax,  D.  D. 
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the  school  and  the  church 

By  Charles  S.  Albert,  D.  D. 

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THE  LUTHERAN  CHURCH  AND 
CHILD-NURTURE 

By  Arthur  H.  Smith,  D.  D. 


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